The Goblet and the Grimoire

The sign over the shop said “Orville’s Old Books” in green paint on a yellow board. Most of the shops in town used pictures to lure in customers. Everyone knew what they’d find in a shop with a tunic over the door, or a candle. Orville wanted only customers who could read and might want to buy his books. It also helped disguise his more profitable business in stolen goods.

“I met Orville when I was wandering, years ago,” Vince began. “I had learned to read a bit from the priests at the Temple of Knowledge and wanted to see if he had any books I could manage to read. He spotted me as a rogue right away and asked what I wanted him to buy. That confused me at first, until I realized he was a fence.

“All of his books were too hard for me to understand, serious scholarly stuff. I could listen to the priests talk about the same things and follow them, but written out like that, it was a muddle to me. But we talked about loot, life as a fence, rogue practices, as well as about books. That’s when he told me about the grimoire. My mention of the Temple of Knowledge led him to complain that they wouldn’t buy his book on magic.

“The Temples all over this northern part of Orilon told him they already had a book like his, and no one could read it, so why did they need another? Since no one could do magic, an unreadable book telling you how to do it wasn’t very useful. I’m hopin’ he still has that book, because maybe Ben can learn something from it.”

The rogues walked through the door into a marvelous treasure room full of the most amazing objects. Small statues of Gods, portraits of long-dead nobles, pieces for known and unknown games. A large array of mugs, goblets, chalices, and other drinking devices filled four shelves. Delicate chairs tempted the unwary to sit in them, at the price of buying them when they broke. Shelf upon shelf of unusual and hard to identify objects filled two walls of the shop, and more shelves of books were behind the counter. Also behind the counter was the owner, a gray haired, clean shaven man with a smiling face.

“Ah, a ‘traveling party’ come to talk about the nice things they found somewhere,” Orville welcomed them as they walked into his shop. “Always interested to here the stories of people fresh off the road, and see the trinkets they just happened to spot under some bush along the wayside.”

“Not today, Orville,” chuckled Vince. “We have just traveled a long way, but we didn’t ‘pick up’ any gifts for you. We want to buy something if you still have it. You probably don’t remember me. I’m Vince and I came through Lugau some years ago. I was broke, lookin’ for books, and you didn’t have anything I could understand. But it must have been a slow day because we talked for a long time. You told me about a grimoire you had. You wanted to sell it and no one wanted to buy it. Even the Temples of Knowledge weren’t interested. I wasn’t interested, either. Now I am.

“This is Ben, and he wants to become a wizard. Wizards need grimoires, and you have one for sale. He’d like to buy it from you. I’m here to make sure you don’t cheat this young man with an ungodly high price.”

“That old grimoire, huh?” Orville considered his approach to a sale. “Well, I still have it. But I can’t let it go cheaply, you know. That is a rare and very ancient book. Full of magical knowledge, the secrets of all the old time wizards. That makes it very valuable. Especially to someone who wants to become a wizard. I’ve turned down several thousand moons for that book, many times. Many times. I want to be certain that I get the right price for it.”

“Orville, the last time I was here you admitted you couldn’t give it away,” countered Vince with a laugh. “I don’t want to cheat you either, but I know you ain’t had any offers for that book. You’d take several hundred moons if someone offered them, let alone several thousand. Name a fair price or at least the startin’ point for some serious dickering.”

“Yeah, now I recognize your voice,” remembered Orville. “Last time you came in alone. Who are all these people with you? Friends, a gang, what?”

“My friends, my gang, all the same,” acknowledged Vince. “Ben’s the only one who cares about the book, the rest are just along to keep us company. So, what’s your price, your real price?”

“Can’t blame me for trying to push up the price. It really is a great book, you know. Well, it looks like a great book. No one can read it, so I can’t be sure. But I can’t give it away, either. I paid a lot for it ten years ago, and need to recoup that cost plus the price of the dust it’s been accumulating on my shelf.

“You are what I took you for when you walked in, rogues, aren’t you?” asked Orville, and Vince nodded. “I’ll offer you a choice. Either way is good for me, and probably for you. You can pay me ten thousand moons for the book. It’s a lot, I know, but that’s what I paid for it, no more. That’s the honest truth, which I hardly ever use. I thought I could make a quick sale and profit on it. Was I ever wrong! Or, you can have it for free, if you get me something else I want.

“Many years ago a rogue named Ned came in with a golden goblet he found in an old tumbled down castle. It was one of the Cups of Sarmandias. He was an ancient count who had two solid gold cups studded with emeralds for himself and his wife.”

“How do you know this?” asked Ben.

“Because I am a well informed antiquarian,” declared Orville, haughtily.

“You’re a fence,” laughed Vince.

“Much the same,” admitted Orville, chuckling good-naturedly. “Now, this count was attacked by his enemies, his castle destroyed and looted. But the cups were never found. This one cup was found ten years ago by this lucky rogue named Ned. He said it was hidden in a special hole in the wall of a big room. He said the niche had a stone door made to look like simple decoration, covered by plaster and paint. The stone door was loose and that’s how he spotted it. There was only one cup inside. And only room for one.

“I gave him a thousand moons for it, because it was gold, and because he didn’t know what he had. I sold that cup for ten thousand moons to the Grand Duke of Rosria. I could get at least that much for the second cup. So that’s my offer. Give me ten thousand moons, or find the second cup for me and get the book for nothing.”

“Any idea of where the second cup is?” asked Vince.

“Same place as the first one was, I’d guess,” answered Orville. “Ned just didn’t look hard enough to find it. Hell, he didn’t even know there was a second one. I don’t even know where he found the first cup, not exactly. He said the castle was in the mountains of northern Bosno, but that’s all I remember. I’ve asked some other rogues to get it for me, but they all say they couldn’t find anything. One guy couldn’t even find the castle.

“Ned took his money and bought a tavern across the river, in Olfen. Good investment for him, lots of travelers come through, lots of caravans with thirsty guards. You could go there and ask him where the castle was. It’s been ten years, but he’ll not have forgotten that day yet. He still calls his place The Golden Cup.

“Here, take a look at this picture,” he said, pulling a book from a tall shelf. “This is my personal record of all the great treasures I’ve handled over the years. What they were, what I paid for them and how much I made from them. And for things like this, what they looked like, so I could find another one. Take a good look, it’s distinctive. Notice the pattern of the emeralds. It’s a real beauty. I’d have kept it for myself if it wasn’t worth so much money to me.

“I’ll be honest with you, which I’m not normally inclined to be, but I want this goblet badly. And so does the Grand Duke of Rosria. He had his men talk to Ned several years ago, and every so often I hear that he’s looking again. So watch out. I don’t know if he’s looking now, but you don’t want to tangle with his men.”

“Polly, did you get a good look at the picture?” asked Vince. “All right, then let’s go. Thank you, Orville, for the history lesson, and the chance to get that grimoire for free.”

***

“Ten thousand moons is an awful lot of money,” Ben observed. “Could we afford that?”

“Maybe, if we put all our money together,” Betsy calculated. “But I think Vince is counting on Polly being able to ‘sense’ where the goblet is. Right, Vince?”

“Yeah, and that makes the grimoire free to us,” explained Vince. “It’ll cost us the time and inconvenience of travel, and that’s all. We have time to spare, and the road is no harder here than anywhere else. We should go to Olfen in the morning and talk to Ned. Tonight, let’s just relax at the bar in the inn.”

***

The largest part of the fighting in the Big War that devastated so much of Wilu and Radalis had stayed south of the mountains of southern Rosria. As a result the cities of Rosria and the lands north of it were spared destruction, although trade fell off dramatically. The nobles who ruled died off or were overthrown by others, the borders changed, but the cities survived. In the centuries since the Big War, trade had recovered and even expanded. Furs, wool, lumber, leather, as well as manufactured items were shipped from the many ports of the northern lands. The River Myrtle was the largest route for this trade, starting in Rosria, and running through Teso and Ethe to the sea.

Olfen was a day’s ride east of Lugau, across the River Myrtle, but not on it. Trade routes from north and east joined in Olfen to feed goods to Lugau for shipment. Weavers turned the wool that passed through into fine cloth, easier to ship and more valuable than plain wool. Other craftsmen added to the prosperity of the city. It was a good place to have a tavern.

The Golden Cup was on a side street just one shop north of the market square. It was an excellent location and should’ve cost Ned a great deal more than his thousand moons. But a fire had damaged the building and killed the owner. His heirs were only too happy to unload the burned tavern to a fool with money.

Ned was no fool, though, and soon had the tavern open again. His profits went into further repairs and within a year his new sign hung over a rebuilt and beautiful beer hall. He hired injured rogues by preference, remembering old friends who had lost limbs and couldn’t find work. A bartender didn’t need two legs to pull a tap and fill a mug.

Ned was behind the bar when Vince and his friends came in, and sized them up. Rogues, no doubt. But dressed in rather nice traveling clothes. Just a hint of mail under those tunics to show who they are. Too nicely dressed, in fact, to be trouble makers. Good, it’s too early in the evening for a brawl. Women, too. Don’t often see female rogues who aren’t whores, and these don’t look like whores. Now, beer or wine? Beer, I think, but a hearty one.

“Welcome to my pub. What can I get for you?” he asked. “I have a very good porter on tap. Or maybe you’d prefer some wine. Ale, lager, stout, cider, perry, whatever suits your thirst.”

“Six porters, if you please,” Horace requested. “A good barman always offers his best drink first. And whatever you want for yourself. We’d like to have a chat with you, if you’re Ned.”

“Coming right up, sir,” answered Ned. “Yes, I’m Ned; been Ned all my life, so far. And I hope to stay Ned until the end. Take that table in the back, it’s good for conversation without eavesdropping.”

There were a lot of tables in the bar, long enough to seat eight but only wide enough for mugs and elbows. Benches were tucked under the unoccupied tables, waiting for new customers. A couple of tables had little fences for dice games and no benches.

“Ah, that’s a good beer!” declared Vince, wiping the foam from his mouth. “Ned, I’d like to dig into your memory, if I may. My name is Vince. My team, Jenny, Horace, Betsy, Ben, and Polly. We were in Lugau yesterday talking to Orville the antiquarian. He told us that you found one of the gold cups of Sarmandias.”

“Yeah, I did. I didn’t know at the time what I had found, or I’d have gotten more for it. But at the time the money was good, and I was able to buy this tavern. I’ve had a nice life out of this place, so I won’t complain about what he paid me.”

“Orville says there were two cups,” continued Vince, “and he’ll give us an item of his that we want if we can find the other cup. I have no idea where Sarmandias’ castle was. I’d like you to tell me where it is, and I’ll pay you a hundred moons for the information.”

“A thousand,” countered Ned.

“Five hundred,” offered Vince.

“Pay him the thousand,” directed Ben. “I got that much, ’n’ I want the book.”

“Well, so much for bargaining,” laughed Betsy, rolling her eyes.

“I was trying to save you some money, Ben,” Vince said. “Never pay more than you have to for anything.”

“That’s fine if you’re buyin’ a mug of beer, or a knife,” agreed Ben. “You kin get beer anywhere, ’n’ knives. Where else are we gonna find out where this castle is? Orville said one of the guys who looked earlier couldn’t even find it. How am I gonna become a, well, you know, if I cain’t get that book? Orville wants ten thousand for it, one thousand ’n’ some of our time is certainly a better price.”

“He’s got you there, Vince,” admitted Jenny. “He may be reading Ned better than you have. Besides, it’s Ben’s money and his book. Let him decide what he wants to spend to get it. He hasn’t made any really bad decisions so far.”

“Orville is going to sell you something worth ten thousand moons for this cup?” asked Ned in wonder. “Boy, did he ever get the best of me! Could I ask for more now…? No, huh? Oh well, I said a thousand and that’s still good money for me.

“How familiar are you with northern Orilon? Ever spent any time wandering around up here?”

“I visited Ethe several years ago on my own,” Vince informed him. “I’ve been in Rosria and places south. I worked my way across the northern coast and then down the east coast of the continent. But I ain’t never been to Bosno or its neighbors, except Rosria.”

“Well, the castle is in the mountains of northwest Bosno. That whole part of Orilon is mountainous and rough traveling. There are cities scattered through the mountains, and money to be had in them, but the roads are narrow and steep. Anyway, this castle was built a long time ago and destroyed a long time ago too. It’s up the side of a mountain; not on top, but high enough up.

“You’ve got two ways to get there. You can go overland from here to Rotherham in Bosno. Ask any merchant, they can tell you what routes to choose from. Lots of different roads. Or you can take a boat up the Myrtle River to Fellbach in Rosria, then another boat up the Apple River to Cricklade. That’s the way I went, easier than sitting on a horse for day after day. From Cricklade , head east through the mountains for Rotherham. You’ll have to ask your way after Cricklade. I wasn’t going any place in particular and just stumbled on the castle.

But when you get to Rotherham, turn south on the road to Seibnitz. It goes right through the mountains, but merchants use it even though it’s a horrible road. About two days south of Rotherham you should see the castle off to your left, halfway up the side of the mountain. That’s all I can tell you about how to get there. I was just wandering, not making notes or really paying attention. But that should be enough for you to find it. And thank you for your money.”

***

“Boat or horse?” asked Polly. “I liked the boat rides down to Ongar, and so did Fearless. And they were pretty fast.”

“Yes, but we was going downstream then,” countered Horace. “We gotta go upstream this time, and if the winds don’t cooperate, it kin be a slow voyage. And our boats put into almost every town we came to. So will these. Slow travel and lots of stops. I vote for horseback.”

“Let’s go to the Temple of Grasilos,” suggested Vince. “The scholars have maps and can give us an idea of the time it’ll take either way. I’m inclined to go by horseback, too. We might be able to pick up some work along the way and plump up our purses a bit.”

***

“It’s getting late in the year,” Wilfred explained, a scholar at the Temple of Grasilos. “The rivers will be low until the snows melt up in the mountains. Spring rains and melting snow fill the rivers very nicely and make for good travel, even upstream. But now with the rivers low, boats have to be careful about hitting sandbars. That slows them down a lot. I speak from experience on this. It took me a week longer in the dry season to reach Fellbach than my friends who went on horseback.

“There are several ways to get from Olfen to Rotherham, but nothing to prefer one over another. I’d suggest you head for Linz, then Freiburg. From there you can go straight to Worthing at the foot of the mountains. There’s a fairly level route from Worthing most of the way to Rotherham. It only gets rough the last day or two.

“Vince, you say you know how to read a map. I’ll draw a simple map for you, and list the stops I’ve suggested. You can get more help from our other Temples along the way, or from merchants. They know all the best routes to anywhere. Have a good trip.”

The Ball Game was played every autumn between the towns of West Windleby and East Windleby. A coin was tossed and the loser of the toss was given the ball to put into a basket in its market square. The ball was a leather globe the size of a man’s head, stuffed with rags until it was firm. The game was very simple: the town that won the toss took the ball from the basket and had to place it in its own basket in its town square. The ball carrier was given two uninterrupted minutes to leave town with the ball, then the other townsfolk would be after him.

The ball could be carried along any road or path, or cross country. Only one man could carry the ball at one time, but any number of people could share the task. Those who were not carrying the ball were allowed to interfere with those trying to regain the ball. They could do almost anything to interfere. The pursuers could also do almost anything to capture the ball and bring it back. The only restriction was that no weapons, including sticks and rocks, were allowed during the game.

Yehuda of West Windleby was racing along a dusty road near the edge of the rocky hills that formed the border of their barony. He was fifty yards ahead of the nearest East Windleby players. There were twenty of them, but he had ten team mates along side of him, ready to stop them when he made his sudden turn into the fields. He knew a hard path through the soft loam and could gain another fifty yards if his opponents stepped into the softer ground.

Just a little bit farther, he thought, right after I pass the narrow gap into the canyon. I’m almost there, twenty more yards, what’s that sound? Horsemen! What are they doin’ here? Better not git in my way.

Zed, leader of a gang of brigands, saw a large number of people running toward him and his men. They were already being chased by an angry mob from the town to the west they had just raided, and didn’t need to face another bunch of outraged peasants.

“Cut down these few right here,” he yelled to his men, “and follow me through this side road going up into these rocks.”

Yehuda fell to the first blow, and three of his friends were also killed. Their pursuers from East Windleby were shocked and stopped in their tracks. More peasants came running up from the west.

Zed led his men through an opening thirty feet wide in the wall of rock along the road. It narrowed down to fifteen feet before widening again to twenty-five feet. A hundred yards farther on it opened into a wide valley, with lush grass and a large pool of water right in front of them. Beyond were scattered trees, bushes, and a small pond. The ground was rockier but there was still some grass as they went farther in.

They were not followed and slowed their pace to a walk. After half an hour they came to a place where the rock wall on their left met the wall on their right.

“Did we miss some turn-off?” asked Zed.

“No,” declared Wilmer, his second in command. “This valley is wide enough most of the way, but I could still see the cliffs on the other side all the way along. Unless there’s a cave that passes right through the rock wall, which I have seen before in some places, there ain’t no way out ’cept the way we came in.”

“Are we trapped here, then?” asked Anson.

“Naw, though they may think so,” replied Zed. “We have swords to attack ’em, and shields to protect ourselves. They got peasant weapons. Scythes, billhooks for prunin’ trees, flails for thrashin’ their grain. Yeah, they’ll hurt, even cut or smash, but they ain’t designed for fightin’. And most peasants don’t know how to use ’em for fightin’, just for their normal use.

“And we got our horses. Any time we want to ride out of here we kin ride down anyone standin’ in our way. They cain’t stop us. And, bein’ peasants and not warriors, they ain’t gonna try to wait us out. By tomorrow they’ll be back to their work in the fields, and we kin just take our time leavin’.

“So let’s make camp here. The horses kin graze in that field by the big pool, and we kin spread our blankets by the smaller pool. The fair in Worthin’ ain’t started yet, and we need for lots of money to show up to make it worth robbin’. We kin afford to wait a few days. Git some fires goin’ and cook up that pig we stole back there.”

***

“Those horsemen just raided West Windleby, killed two men and a woman, and stole the prize for the game, and that was a tasty lookin’ pig,” complained Rhett.

“They’ve killed some more of your men here, too,” Eugene, from East Windleby, pointed out. “They’ve gone through the gap in the cliff wall, into the canyon. They cain’t get out of there, but I reckon they don’t know that. They’re trapped, but what good does that do us? We ain’t warriors, and we don’t even have many weapons. The baron is a day’s ride away, two days at least for his men to arrive. These guys could break out of here at any time, and we cain’t stop ’em. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this!”

“That’s right,” growled Hiram. “As mayor of West Windleby I’ll take charge of this. My town has suffered the latest losses from these brigands. You men of East Windleby have had your own losses in the past, and I ask for your assistance now. Eugene, you got a horse at home. Will you ride to tell the baron what’s happened and ask for his help?”

“Of course. You two men, you got horses, too. Come ride with me.”

“Now, what can we do to keep these brigands locked in the canyon?” asked Hiram. “It’s deep enough they’ll spend a fair bit of time before they realize there ain’t no other way out. We don’t have much time to block this exit. Any ideas?”

“The openin’ is only thirty feet wide here, and it’s narrower inside before widenin’ out again at the other end,” considered Rhett. “We could build a wall across the narrowest spot.”

“That’ll take time,” argued Lyle. “What if they come back and we’re only partly done? We need somethin’ to keep ’em from ridin’ us down and gittin’ away.”

Their discussion continued for half an hour until Darius joined them. “I just climbed to the top of the cliff and looked into the canyon. They’re settin’ up camp inside! They’re unsaddlin’ their horses and settin’ ’em to graze next to the large pond. Some of ’em are buildin’ campfires farther in by the small pond. I reckon they plan to stay the night.”

“Why would they do that?” asked Rhett. “They know we’re out here. They must know we know this is a box canyon, since we live here. So they should know that we know they’re trapped.”

“We’re peasants, not warriors,” commented Hiram. “Maybe they figure we’ll hang around for a while today and then go home. Tomorrow they can leave without any effort. But that does give us time to really barricade them in.”

‘Oh, no! There’s more a-comin’!” yelled Rhett, pointing to six riders coming down the road.

“Get out! Turn back while you kin, or we’ll kill all of you, even the women,” growled the big, mean looking peasant leading the men blocking the road. “We don’t need no more brigands here, so go someplace else. Now!”

“We’re not brigands,” declared Vince, as calmly as he could. “We are adventurers, but we actually hunt down bandits and brigands. If you have a problem with brigands, maybe we can help you get rid of ’em.”

“Adventurer, ha, just another name for brigand. Sounds nicer, trying to trick us into thinkin’ you’re just some helpful travelers. We’ve seen your type before. Charged us two hundred moons to get rid of the brigands six months ago, and disappeared. They were gone, our money was gone, only the brigands were still here. I don’t think we need no more of that sort of help. Now, git!”

“We won’t ask for money in advance,” Vince told them. “We won’t ask for any money if we don’t get rid of your brigands, either. In fact, we won’t ask… wait, how many brigands are there? On horses?”

“Of course on horses! Cain’t get away fast enough on foot, kin they? How many? About forty, I’d say. I don’t see three men takin’ on forty tough brigands.”

“Our wives also fight,” Vince told them.

“Oooh, six of you! Against forty brigands. Hummpf! Don’t make me laugh. Hit the road.”

“We don’t need to make another mistake like we did with Franz and Magda,” cautioned Jenny. “We can’t take on all the jobs we find. You know that as well as I do.”

“Yeah, but forty horses!” argued Vince. “Tell me, sir, where are these brigands? Camped out in the open? Hiding in some forest? Holed up in some ruined castle?”

“Like we’re goin’ to let you join up with ’em! Don’t matter, they’ve gone through here into a box canyon, and we’re goin’ to keep ’em locked in until the baron and his men arrive.”

“Big canyon?”

“Couple of miles long, half a mile wide. Big enough for forty men and horses. That’s pretty big. Want to climb up and take a look from the top?”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” offered Vince. “We’ll dismount and put our weapons and armor in a nice pile over there. You can lead Jenny and me to the clifftop while your men keep our friends as hostages. If we think we can wipe these brigands out by ourselves, we’ll do it for nothin’. All we’ll want is the horses and equipment the brigands have. We’ll even give you any cash we find on them, to make up for your losses to them.”

“How kin I trust you?”

“Your friends will have our friends in their hands. You’ve got a lot of men here. They should be able to handle four disarmed rogues. Take a couple of your men with you if you don’t trust Jenny and me. We’re just lookin’ for a chance to make some money. Removing brigands is a good way to do that. If we don’t think we can beat the brigands, we’ll gladly leave. You have nothing to lose.”

“All right. Pile your stuff by those trees. Come on this way. My name’s Hiram, by the way.”

“Pleased to meet you, Hiram. My name’s Vince, and this is my wife Jenny.”

“Female rogues, and fighters, now I seen everythin’. Climb up here, ain’t a hard climb on this side. The rock inside is really breakable, grab a piece to pull yourself up, and it comes off in your hand. Our teens like to try to climb out, but no one’s ever done it. And there’d be big braggin’ rights if someone did it. There, look down there.”

Vince and Jenny looked into the canyon, about fifty or sixty feet deep, partly covered with trees. They could see some campfires going among the trees, and some men cutting up a hog for roasting. Rough looking men sat on the ground around the fires, talking and drinking. Vince counted forty horses near a large pond, eating the lush grass growing there. Two men were sitting on boulders near the inner end of the passage out.

“What do you think, Vince?” asked Jenny. “There’s no way we can sneak up on them, it’s too flat and open. If we go in those two guards will warn the others. We can’t fight that many men in the open. We need an edge. Am I missing something?”

“Not entirely, but you’re assumin’ we have to attack them to beat them. Look at those guards. From this spot Betsy and Ben can take them out tonight without any sound alerting the others. Then we go down the passage, quietly gather the horses together, and lead them to our side. The horses are all by this big pond, and the men are camped way back there by the smaller pond. With a little luck, we won’t make any noise doing this.

“This gives us our payment, up front. The next mornin’, the brigands will discover the missing horses, and the two dead guards. All we have to do then is defend our end of the passage. They can’t climb out, or so Hiram says, so they have to come out through that passage. Let’s go see how the others feel.”

***

“Fifteen feet wide, maybe,” estimated Jenny, looking at the narrowest spot down the passage. “This is just like a bridge fight, or defending a castle gate. Not quite as easy as defending the Red Tower or Dagalar’s Gate. But still simple. A small number can hold off a much larger force because the bigger army can’t get all their men into the fight.”

“Yep, it’ll be easy,” agreed Vince. “Three of us in front, Jenny, me, and Horace. Polly poking her spear from behind. Betsy and Ben watchin’ for chances to fire a shot.”

“No, that’s all wrong,” countered Jenny. “I’ve been doing this since I was ten...”

“Ten!” wondered Polly in amazement. “How could you be doing this since you were ten?”

“I told you my father trained the men at arms for Baron Kipelsky. Don’t you remember? He taught me sword work and defensive formations of all sorts. I normally didn’t go into the field with the army, but I told you about my big castle defense.

“Anyway, we should put Vince and Ben in the middle of our line. Vince is big and strong. Ben isn’t as big, or as strong, but he’s strong enough. I’m better at shield work, but I haven’t the size and strength to hold against a really determined assault. If they hit hard, trying to break through our line, we have no one to help us push back, so we have to hold our ground with serious determination.

“Betsy will be on one end of our line, and I’ll take the other. Horace will be behind the line swinging his axe over our shields, trying to splinter their shields and smash their heads. Polly, you’ll be behind the line too, on your knees, looking up under our shields for opponents who have raised their shields too high. Poke them in their legs and guts. You don’t even have to kill with those blows because the guy will be useless for fighting. This works just like a meat grinder for making sausage. Pour your enemies in and out comes hash.

“Now the only thing to worry about is how to keep them from rushing at us all at once. If they can push us hard enough our line will collapse. I hope you have a trick for that, Vince. You sounded as if you weren’t concerned about it.”

“I ain’t. If I can stop them from rushing us, is everyone happy with the plan?”

Everybody said ‘Yes’ and looked for more explanation.

“Fine. Hiram, can we get a couple of oxen here tonight? There’s a biggish dead tree back down the road from here.”

“Yeah, lightnin’ knocked it down several months ago. The storm with the lightnin’ knocked down several more. We’ve been cuttin’ them up since the end of harvest, that’s the last one. What do you want with it?”

“I want to use your oxen to haul that tree here, into this passage. The tree is big enough to fill the narrowest part, and the branches will get jammed against the rock walls. One man can drive the oxen in, remove their harness, and crawl out through the branches. The brigands won’t have any way to pull it through or push it back. They’ll have to crawl through the branches too, and that keeps them from fighting us with all their numbers.

“The oxen will have to stay inside, of course, so I’ll pay for them myself. It’ll take some time to haul that tree here, so let’s get started on that right away. Betsy, you and Ben should go up to the top of the cliff before it gets dark. Shoot the guards when their camp looks quiet.”

***

The night was half over, both moons were up, and the guards had been on duty for an hour. Jenny figured they had two hours to steal the horses before the watch was changed again. Both guards wore leather armor and metal skull caps. One man was sitting upright on a boulder, glancing around for unseen dangers, and not seeing them. Ben rolled his stone in his hand, thinking about hitting his target between his eyes. It was an easy and fatal location to aim for.

Betsy’s target had just stood up to stretch his arms over his head. She whispered “Now” and fired her arrow. As it pierced the man’s chest, his partner fell over with a large dent in his forehead. No sound came from either man. No sound came from the camp. Ben lit a magic flame on a stone and flung it high into the air. The other rogues snuck down the passage and made for the horses.

They were all familiar with horses, their moods and worries. A little quiet soothing talk kept them from making noise as they were led out of the canyon. In just over an hour, all the horses were in a field across from the passage. As a final touch, Horace searched the two dead guards for any valuables they might have, and grabbed their swords, armor, and helmets.

Another hour of intense effort and stifled curses was enough to pull the dead tree into place halfway down the passage. Vince watched Rhett crawl awkwardly through the branches with the ox harness in his hands. He sighed with relief.

In the morning the brigands awoke. First they noticed the absence of their horses, replaced somehow by two oxen. Then they saw the two dead guards. When they looked into the passage, they saw a large tree blocking the way out.

“What is that?” asked Wilmer, pointing to the tree.

“That is proof that I kin be wrong,” confessed Zed, glumly. “I didn’t think these peasants could figure out how to keep us in here. Now they’ve stolen our horses and put a barricade in our way. That tree was a clever idea. They pulled it in far enough to jam the branches into the sides of the passage so we cain’t push it back out. And it’s jammed tightly enough we’ll have trouble pullin’ it the rest of the way into this canyon.”

“Where did these oxen come from?” asked Anson.

“They brought the tree here,” explained Zed. “Sacrifice a couple of oxen to keep us here for the baron. I see they took away the harness for the oxen. Well, let’s see what we kin improvise. How much rope do we have? Any of you been a farm boy recently enough to remember how to hook an ox up to something you want pulled? Wilmer, get some guys with axes and start chopping the bigger branches. We need to make it smaller so we can pull it through.”

The sound of axes chopping wood let the rogues know the brigands were awake and trying to get out. Betsy stuck the last of her breakfast in her mouth and chewed as she slung her quiver over her shoulder and strung her bow. She walked to the outer end of the tree branches. Any leaves on the tree had dropped off since it fell. There were lots of branches out here, but thin, and she could see through them easily enough to shoot men who were standing still. She shot two before the others ran away.

“A peasant didn’t shoot that well,” noted Zed looking at the two dead men from a safe distance. “Both arrows are dead center in their chests. You say there was only one archer?”

“Yeah, boss, just the one,” answered Anson. “It was a woman, too.”

“A woman?” asked Zed. “Are you sure?”

“Zed, I ain’t a little boy anymore. I know a woman when I see one, and that was a woman.”

“I don’t know if that’s good news or bad,” puzzled Zed. “If there’s only one archer, and a woman at that, the baron ain’t here. He wouldn’t have women in his army. But a woman fightin’ us? I’ve heard of female rogues once in a while, so maybe they’re rogues. Did you see any more people with her?”

“No, but I was tryin’ to get out of her sight. Even if it’s a bunch of rogues, maybe lookin’ for a reward on us, how many kin there be? And how good kin they be? We still have most of our men alive, armed, and armored. Climb through those branches with our armor on, and charge ’em.”

“Anson, I like your confidence. But think about this. We got some rogues here who got a woman archer who kin shoot that well. That means they’re not casual rogues. They must be experienced. And we don’t know how many of ’em there are. We got food enough for a while, especially with their gift of two oxen. We got plenty of water.

“On the other hand, sooner or later we gotta leave. If we leave today we kin still get to the fair in Worthin’, even on foot. If we kin get our horses back, we kin stay another two or three days more. But we gotta leave before too long. Two or three days is time enough for the baron to arrive. And we don’t wanna be here when the baron comes.”

“What if he’s not comin’?” asked Wilmer.

“I think it’s safer to believe the peasants sent for him. That makes us eager to leave. If we don’t think he’s comin’, we’ll be unhappy to find he is. Besides these peasants pay taxes for the baron’s protection, and they’ll want him to do his duty to ’em. Yeah, thinkin’ about it, that’s the likeliest answer, bad as it is for us. Get fed now, then get your armor on. We’re gonna break out this mornin’.”

***

As the sun rose higher a crowd began to collect behind Vince’s band. People from both towns were coming out to see six men – no, three men and three women --take on forty nasty brigands. Hiram had told them the strangers seemed incredibly confident of victory, as though defeat was impossible. This was going to be the biggest event in the history of their towns, and no one wanted to miss it.

“We don’t normally have an audience when we fight,” mentioned Vince. “Do these people realize that battles sometimes go wrong?”

“Well, yes,” replied Hiram, “but they probably reckon they can run away fast enough if they have to. The brigands’ll be grabbin’ their horses first if they beat you, won’t they?”

“True enough. Just make sure your townsmen know that those are our horses now, legitimately stolen from the brigands.”

Jenny took over the arrangement of their line, just as she had described it earlier. She had a qualm she didn’t voice about Ben. Even Polly has been in a serious battle, the one against Scarface’s men. Ben hadn’t fought then, thank all the Gods for that. He fought at Dagalar’s Gate, but that was a small fight. No, I’m wrong. I keep thinking he’s never experienced the horror and chaos of a big battle. He had the same position in the fight at Ochtrup and he fought really well against professionals. He doesn’t worry about anything, or even seem to get scared. This is going to be a tough fight, and he’s in the center of the line. But what am I worried about? I trained him. That settles that.

“Betsy, just take your place in the line. I know you could kill a lot of them while they’re trying to crawl through the branches. But their bodies may discourage the others from coming on. I want them all to get through so we can feed them into our meat grinder here. The branches will keep their numbers down, and that’s all we need.

“The branches are wedged in at the fifteen foot gap, but the passage doesn’t widen that fast on this side. We have to cover maybe eighteen feet or so. We can easily fight three, four, five at a time. As we kill them, they’ll send in more. Pretty soon the odds will be in our favor, even in the open.”

In the canyon Zed was telling his men “Only our shields will protect us from those arrows. So we gotta come to close quarters quickly and overpower that little band. We gotta climb through that tangle of branches first, so try to keep your shield in front of you. They got at least one really good archer who’ll drop you if you don’t.”

“No, she’s just gone into their shield wall,” observed Anson.

“That’s in our favor. Form up four across, keep your shields tight together, and watch out for that guy with the axe. He looks too confident for my taste. Forty against six, this’ll be easy.”

The brigands stepped up to the tree and began working their way through the branches. It was slow work and some had more trouble than others. As they came into the open they formed up their own line and attacked Jenny’s line. The brigands swung their swords rapidly, trying to overwhelm their opponents’ defenses. Their blows were parried by expert shield defense, and the odd blow that glanced off a shield onto a body was unable to cut through Knut’s mail.

Ben stood still, holding his shield in place exactly as Jenny had taught him, over and over. He felt bad about not making any attacks of his own, but Jenny seemed to think he should just hold a shield to defend the others. And the others included his wife, so that was fine with him. Some of the brigands tried to push him back, and it was hard to keep his place, but he just concentrated on holding his ground. He snuck glances at Vince from time to time, and just did what he did. The wide open fight in Ochtrup was a lot different, fighting all alone. Someone at his side suddenly seemed to make fighting safer. He started to get a little confident.

Horace swung his axe like a man driving piles, crashing down on shields and splintering them, or splitting helmets and skulls. Betsy and Vince just held their ground, parrying any blows coming in, not offering any openings for a sword to sneak in, or a brigand to push them back. Only Jenny took an active role in the defense. On the right end of the line, she was doubly protected. Her opponent’s shield kept him from attacking her easily, but she knew how to snake her sword out quickly and stab or slash at him.

In the middle of the line Polly was poking her spear point from between Vince and Ben’s shields. Kneeling, she could peek between and beneath their shields and pick the openings she wanted. If she could slip it between a couple of brigand shields, she could stick it into someone’s gut or chest. If she couldn’t, she could still cut into their legs.

The fighting was exhausting for both sides, and very slow. The first four brigands had been cut down quickly, but it took time for others to come out and take their places. And, after a while, the bodies on the ground made it hard for the brigands to get close. But no one told the newcomers to watch out for the sneaky spear crippling and killing them from below.

Fifteen minutes fighting cost Zed ten men dead. He yelled an order and his men started to back out of the passage. It was harder to retreat than it had been to advance, harder still when Betsy and Ben began to fire at their unshielded backs. Two more died. Once clear of the tree, the survivors ran out of view of the passage.

“We’ve taken out ten of them here, and two more in their retreat,” noticed Vince. “Thank you, Jenny, for your great advice. With the two guards and the two axemen Betsy shot earlier, that’s sixteen of the forty dead. Twenty-four left is still too many, but the odds are getting better.”

Zed had two of his men hold shields in front of him, and stepped into the open. “What the hell are you doin’ here?” he yelled. “I’m gittin’ really pissed off now, so you’d better git away while you kin. If we git through this gap, we’ll slaughter all of you, includin’ all those peasants watchin’ behind you.”

“What’s stoppin’ you from coming through to our side?” asked Vince with a laugh. “Oh, yeah, we are. You haven’t even scratched one of us yet. We can keep this up all day if you want. I count over a dozen of your men out of action already. You could, of course, just surrender to us. We’ll turn you over to the locals. They promise to hang you quickly and fairly.”

“Oh, right, like I want to be hanged. If you want us, come and git us! This passage works both ways.”

“We might do that, but not until the odds are more in our favor. We have your horses so you can’t get away very fast if you try to run. You can’t raid for food; how much do you have on hand? I know what you’re thinkin’; you think you can wait until dark and storm through when we can’t see you coming. We’ll have lights here to make it easy to shoot you.

“We didn’t shoot at your men coming through the tree earlier because we wanted to kill ’em here in front of us, and we wanted all your men. You pulled back. Smart move. But comin’ through tonight, we won’t be so accommodating. We’ll shoot every one of your men we can, and cut down the few who manage to get through. Surrender. It’s the simplest solution. Hangin’ ain’t any fun, I grant, but neither is havin’ your head split or your guts cut open.”

Zed darted back out of sight without making any reply.

“Damn, sixteen dead men! And we ain’t even wounded a single one of ’em!” yelled Zed. “This is becomin’ a total disaster. We kin still get away tonight with some hard work. Farm boys, have you figured out how to harness those oxen?”

“Yeah, boss, we kin use a head yoke,” explained Elroy. “I kin tie this branch to the ox’s horns as a yoke. The we kin tie the rope to the yoke and the tree. The oxen then pull. That tree looks perty well jammed into that narrow spot, and we might hafta cut some more branches to make it pull through.”

“Is their archer gonna let us hack at any branches?” asked Wilmer. “For that matter, is she gonna let us tie ropes to the trunk of the tree?”

“We do this at night, when it’s dark,” advised Zed. “I know they said they’re gonna put up torches to see us comin’ through the branches. But the light won’t be strong enough to aim well at the base of the trunk. If we have to hack at a couple of branches, someone kin hold a shield in front of the man with the axe.

“Once we get the tree out of the way, we kin attack. Tonight if we ain’t too tired from manhandlin’ the tree out of our way. Tomorrow anyway. Then our numbers’ll work for us again. Meanwhile, git some sleep so we’ll be fresh for tonight.”

***

“Are they gonna be coming back tonight, Vince?” asked Horace.

“I don’t know. They want to, but I told ’em we’d have torches to light up this area, and that we’d shoot anyone coming through the branches. They won’t want to try climbing through if there’s light here, and they can’t stop Betsy. They might try to pull the tree out of the way; they have the oxen. That would let ’em charge us as a mass, hoping to push through our line by brute force. We can’t let ’em do that.”

“The base of this tree is in range for me,” Betsy considered, “but I’m not sure how much light some torches will throw down there. Shooting through the branches is tricky enough without having to guess at vital spots.”

“We could shoot at them from above the way we took out the first two guards,” suggested Ben. “Nothin’ in the way, no shields in the way. Not at first, anyways.”

“That’s a good idea, Ben,” admitted Betsy. “Polly can join us, too. With the tree in place, Vince, Jenny, and Horace can hold the passage on their own. And three of us up there firing stones and arrows at them will take out a lot of them. Make up some stones for hitting a man in the neck, Ben. From above, you might hit a man’s helmet if you aim for his head.”

“That’s good, Betsy,” agreed Jenny. “If they try to move the tree, we can kill a bunch of them. If they don’t, well, we lose some sleep for nothing.”

“We can nap now, it’s still afternoon,” commented Vince. “If they want to pull the tree out, they have to start early to get it out by dawn. I think it’s pretty tightly jammed in. If they don’t try early, we can set a watch, and get some sleep. Hiram, can you find us two or three torches, and get someone to run a rope down from the top of the cliff? We’d like to come down in the dark safely.”

A couple of townsmen from West Windleby had volunteered to watch the tree while the rogues slept. Before the sun went down, Betsy, Ben, and Polly climbed the cliff. They brought some food and water for their vigil. When the sun had set, the volunteer guards woke up the others, and Horace sliced up some meat and bread so they could have a quick meal.

***

“You’re sure this rig is gonna work?” asked Zed, looking at the improvised yoke attached to the oxen’s horns.

“It should, boss,” explained Elroy. “I seen yokes like this on an ox, and it seemed to work just fine. My folks used a different type of yoke, but I ain’t got the materials here to make that kind. This is simple to make and use. I got the ropes tied on here, just tie them to the trunk and we kin get started.”

“Right,” said Zed. “It’s dark now and even if they’re waitin’ up for us to do somethin’, they cain’t see much. Those torches don’t give off a lot of light this far off. Tie the ropes around the trunk just above that bottom branch so they won’t pull off. Signal Elroy when they’re tied on.”

One moon rose in a cloudless sky and Betsy, Ben, and Polly settled in for their wait. They took turns looking over the edge of the cliff at the entrance to the narrow passage. There was just enough light from the torches farther in to reveal anyone coming up to the tree. After a couple of hours, Polly saw some men leading the two oxen toward the tree and alerted her friends. The men below turned the oxen around to face into the canyon as another man inspected them. He spoke to another man and seemed to approve what was being done.

Four men took lengths of rope from the oxen to the tree trunk and began tying them on. Betsy spoke quietly “Ben, take the man in front on the near rope. Polly, take the other man there. I’ll try to get the man leading the oxen.”

They fired and three men fell over. Betsy fired another arrow and the fourth man died. Ben and Polly flung stones at the man standing next to the oxen, but he moved when he saw his comrades shot. He dodged behind the oxen and peered out from under their bellies. The other man ran farther back into the woods nearby.

“Four down anyway,” counted Betsy. “Don’t feel bad about not getting the other guy. He saw the first four fall and was warned. Can’t do anything about someone’s good reactions.”

“Do we go down now?” asked Polly.

“No, we wait to see what they do. I think they’ll send a couple of men with shields to protect the guys tying on the rope. That’ll make it harder to kill any of them, but they may make a mistake. Patience is very important in hunting. Ben, you should know this from hunting rabbits. Just be ready when a chance appears.”

***

“How is that woman shootin’ so well through all those branches with so little light?” asked Zed in frustration.

“She ain’t shootin’ through the branches,” decided Elroy. “She’s up on top of the cliff, with two others. I saw ’em after I dived for cover.”

“All right, if she’s up there, she cain’t be down here too,” declared Zed. “Anson, take some men and start choppin’ those branches. Wilmer, get me some more men to tie the ropes to that damned tree, and some more with shields to protect ’em. Hurry, this is gettin’ on my nerves. We’ve got to get out of here as soon as possible. No, just one man to tie each rope, one man to shield him. We’re losin’ too many men too fast.”

***

“Wait until I shoot,” warned Betsy. “I’m going to hit one of the shieldmen in his leg, which will drop him to the ground. When I do, fire at the other man he’s supposed to be protecting. Then we do the other two the same way.”

She fired, hitting the man just above his left knee. He fell to the ground crying out in pain. Ben and Polly both hit his buddy, and he fell dead. Betsy fired at the other shieldman, with the same effect. Ben and Polly also took out their target. Betsy fired a couple more arrows to finish off the wounded men.

Fifteen minutes later, after a lot of argument and shouting, four more men started out for the tree. All four were on their knees, making as small a target as possible, and the shieldmen had somehow tied two shields together to make one oversize shield. Betsy could see no openings for an arrow.

“They may have finally figured how to protect themselves,” she told Ben and Polly. “I don’t think we can do any more up here, since they’ve thought about big shields. Let’s go down and tell Vince how we did.”

“Eight dead is good,” approved Vince. “That should leave ’em with just sixteen men left. While you were up there, they were trimmin’ the branches back. Now let’s see if they can drag the tree out of their way. If they do it quickly enough, they’ll probably try to bust out tonight. If they wear themselves out, they may wait for morning. But I think they won’t want to wait.”

“They’ll try to break through our line and overwhelm us, two or three to one,” instructed Jenny. “We don’t want to fight that way, but our line might still break. So, we don’t try to kill every one of them with every blow. Take a man’s leg out if you can. If you have an easy head shot, take it. But if not, cripple him, then leave him alone, skip somewhere else. Our extra-sharp weapons are going to make that easier. We’re going to give ground as we wound them. Their wounded men can still fight, but not if we leave them behind.

“When they’re all dead or crippled, we go back and finish off the wounded ones. A rare man might be tough enough to stagger after us on his wounded leg. Hit him again. He won’t stagger on two gashed legs. If he does, compliment him and cut his throat.”

“This will be a hard fight,” agreed Vince. “They have to win to get away. We have to win to survive. We don’t want to lose any of us. Fight for yourself, and fight for each other. Remember, Amos and his men aren’t backin’ us up this time. It’s all on us to win or die. Ben, cover Betsy, Horace, Jenny, and me the same way you’ll cover Polly. I know you understand this, I just want to reinforce the idea.

“We’ll be outnumbered at the start. This is why we want to cripple as many as we can early in the fight. Six against sixteen is hard. Six against twelve is not quite so hard. Six against eight is easy, for us. We’re all well trained, only Ben and Polly are short on experience. I’ve seen Polly fight like a demon. I’ve seen Ben fight, in that fake battle against Amos and that real fight at Ochtrup. We all know his spirit and devotion to us. You’ll do fine, Ben. Take your time. Don’t act rashly. Watch your flanks. Now, let’s take a rest while they try to move that tree.”

***

“It’s moving, Zed,” observed Elroy. “The oxen was strugglin’ until that one branch broke off. It’ll take maybe half an hour more to get the passage clear.”

“Good. Thanks, Elroy,” commented Zed. “All of you men, get your armor on and your weapons ready. Pack up all your gear. Elroy says the road will be clear in half an hour. When it’s open, we rush ’em. Full speed, don’t stop for anythin’, push right through their line. No playin’ around. Cripple ’em if you have to as a start, we can always cut their throats later. Once we finish ’em off, get our horses. We come back to grab our gear, and then we get as far from here as we can tonight before the baron can get here.”

In time the last branches pulled free of the narrow passage. Zed led his men into the open path, looking at Vince and his band waiting for them in the narrowest part of the passage, now clear for them. Damn, they look confident. Do they really think six of ’em can beat us? I’ve still got sixteen men, they’re outnumbered almost three to one. Hell, four to one, because they only have four men in their line. One behind with that oversized axe. Where’s the other one? Hidin’? In reserve? Why, with the odds so far against ’em?

“Come on, men, at a run!” cried Zed as he raced forward. He intended to break through between Vince and Ben, making a hole for more of his followers to pour through. He pushed against their shields hard, and two of his men behind him pushed him. Two more farther back added their weight to the press. Ben’s left foot shifted six inches, but he braced himself, leaned into his shield, and held his place.

Polly’s spear stabbed out under his shield and gashed someone’s leg. He fell forward just as Ben was trying to move his foot back, and the timing was wrong. The falling body upset Ben’s balance just enough to make him back up two steps. Vince kept his place next to Ben, falling back with him to maintain their line. Ben saw an opening as the wounded man hit the ground, and he slashed his sword across a man’s face.

Two other brigands fell to Horace’s axe, but more brigands were still pressing hard. Jenny’s line was now back three feet from where it started, and the passage was widening. The brigands were taking advantage to extend their line from four men to five.

Polly pulled back with the others, but kept her focus on exposed legs. As the brigands tried to stretch their line, she slashed into two neighboring legs, one left and one right. Two men fell in pain. They opened up a hole for her to reach at her greatest extension and poke her spear into a third man’s gut.

The men in back pushed harder still and the brigands finally managed to disrupt Jenny’s line. The passage was now twenty-two feet wide and getting wider behind them. As the brigands broke through, Jenny yelled “Spread out. Open fighting now!”

Ben backed up to cover Polly and let her poke with her spear. A man ran at Jenny, exposing his right side, and Ben drove his sword into the man’s leather jerkin. The others spread out and attacked the nearest brigands, then another, and another. Jenny cut a man’s leg open from knee to foot and he dropped screaming. Another of her victims fell on top of him.

Vince and Betsy were doing the same, and the brigands were falling fast. Horace swung his axe low and took out two men swinging left and right at knee height. Polly’s spear had pierced one man’s leg, but been trapped when he fell. Ben saw one more still standing and rushed at him. He feinted at the man’s leg and the man, having seen so many leg attacks, believed in the feint. Ben’s sword swerved at the last instant and rose to strike the man’s head, splitting it open from chin to crown.

In fifteen minutes, all the brigands had been crippled, and six were already dead. Polly pulled her spear free, and finished off the man who had trapped it. Then she went up to one of the wounded men and pushed her spear against his shield. Once it was pressed to his body, Vince came up and struck at his head. Jenny and Ben, Betsy and Horace also double-teamed brigands. They offered no quarter, and none was asked. The brigands knew they’d be hanged if they surrendered. They might as well die as painlessly as they could.

***

“God, I’m tired!” sighed Polly. “I lost track of how many legs I slashed or stabbed. It felt like every one of them, but it couldn’t have been.”

“I’m sorry about givin’ ground early on, Vince,” confessed Ben. “You was countin’ on me to hold my position, ’n’ I didn’t.”

“You were fine, Ben,” Vince corrected him. “Any of us could’ve given ground with a man fallin’ against him, and at some point we were going to be pushed back. That’s what happens. We didn’t break up into chaos, but into a free form fight. Everyone did his job perfectly. Including you, Ben. I saw you personally take out three of the six we killed before the end. That’s more than I did, or Jenny.”

“Here comes Hiram,” noticed Horace. “Brave of him to stay out here, when he coulda been safe at home.”

“I wouldn’ta believed it if I hadn’t seen it,” exclaimed Hiram. “You really did wipe out all forty brigands! I’m truly amazed! The townsfolk will be sorry they didn’t see this battle. Are any of you injured? We have some healer women we can send for if you need them.”

“I’ve got a slash on my shoulder,” admitted Betsy. “Someone’s sword slipped inside the back of my hauberk and cut me from inside. Freak bad luck.”

“My wrist is cut, but not badly,” added Horace.

“I kin take care of both of you,” volunteered Ben. “Take off your hauberk, Betsy ’n’ let me see your shoulder. I’ll take care of Horace first, while you’re doin’ that. His wound is smaller ’n’ easy to heal. Oh, yes, that’s a nasty cut. It’ll take a little longer. Kin someone get us some clean water?”

“He says he’s goin’ to heal them,” wondered Hiram. “Has he been trained by the healer women? He seems so young to know how to handle wounds properly. They’re mostly older women. Does he need any herbs?”

“Ben doesn’t use herbs, or even regular healer techniques,” explained Jenny. “He just puts the cut parts together and they get healed. We don’t know how, he doesn’t know how. But it works. He’s a wizard.”

“A wizard? I’d say you was lyin’, or at least mistaken,” argued Hiram, “but that’s what I said about you bein’ able to beat these brigands. That there woman has an ugly cut in her shoulder, though.”

Half an hour later Hiram looked at Betsy’s shoulder and couldn’t even see a trace of the wound. Ben sat down, worn out from fighting and healing, and smiled at Hiram’s praise.

“Young man, that is the most amazin’ thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I would’ve said your victory over so many was more wonderful than anythin’, but I’ve seen good warriors fight well before, in my younger days. But I’ve never seen someone just touch a wound, close it up, and heal it like that. I’m mighty impressed.

“I want to thank all of you for riddin’ us of these brigands. Their horses are here, waitin’ for you. You said you wanted their saddles, armor, and weapons. It’s all yours. Are you sure you don’t want any of their loot? We appreciate your offerin’ that to us as compensation for our dead friends. But I reckon you’ve got a claim to it as a reward for your risk.”

“No, Hiram,” countered Vince. “Just what we asked for up front. Forty horses, saddles, swords, and scraps of armor will get us as much as eight thousand moons in Worthing. Especially with the fair coming on. Asking for more would be greedy.”

“Well, if you’re ever back in this area again, stop by for a visit to either of the Windlebys. We’ll always give you a good welcome back. Let your people rest now. I’ll go back to town and rouse the folks up. We’ll take care of clearin’ these bodies out. We’ll also get the saddles from inside the canyon, and strip the armor and weapons from the bodies. When you wake up, it’ll all be done.”

***

About mid-morning the baron showed up, with ten knights and thirty men at arms, all in scale armor. Baron Rassalar was in his mid-fifties, slightly pudgy, short, and, when he removed his helmet, somewhat bald. Hiram called Vince and his band to join him, and went up to greet his baron.

“Good morrow, Baron Rassalar,” said Hiram. “I’m glad you came at our request, but I apologize for makin’ you come here. When we sent for help, we was in dire need of assistance. But soon after our messengers left, we received help from these men and women. They are Vince, Jenny, Horace, Betsy, Ben, and Polly. They’re admittedly adventurers and rogues. But they’ve killed all the brigands on their own. We aided them in some small things, but they did all the fightin’, and it was a wonder to see.”

“I was told there were forty or more brigands,” objected Rassalar, dismounting. “Were there fewer after all?”

“No, My Lord, we spent half the night and mornin’ buryin’ them. There were forty; we counted them.”

“Well, this is remarkable,” Rassalar praised them. “Vince, I take it that you lead this brave band. My congratulations on your success. It would’ve been a hard task even for my trained men.”

“What is that design on your shield, My Lord?” asked Ben, interrupting.

“Oh, that is the Flaming Sword of Sir Tanalor, who was a distant ancestor of mine,” explained Rassalar. “It is famous in legend as being able to cut through any armor, leather or metal, like a hot knife through butter. A lovely story, but legend. Still, I honor the memory of my ancestor in this way.”

“Wow, My Lord!” exclaimed Ben. “I heard about Sir Tanalor in my grampa’s stories, but I never thought I’d meet someone related to him. I’m honored to meet you, My Lord.”

“Thank you,” answered Rassalar, amiably. “Now, Vince, is there any reward I may offer you for your good work? I’m a most generous man.”

“No, My Lord,” Vince demurred. “We had an agreement with the people of these towns. We’d get to keep the horses and certain other gear of the brigands, and leave everything else of value for ’em to make up for those killed by the brigands. We don’t need any other reward. We’ll sell all these things in Worthing and at the fair. We support ourselves by riddin’ Orilon of bandits and brigands. Most rogues don’t see the profit in this, but we do, and have done well for ourselves. All I would ask of you is that you make official what Hiram and the rest have agreed to.”

“Oh, well, that is quite impossible,” objected Rassalar, feeling affronted. “Any possessions of the criminals are forfeit to me as a fine. The laws of the realm are quite clear about this. In return for protecting my people, I am entitled to anything belonging to those who commit crimes. I will be happy to give you a hundred moons each for your valiant efforts. That should be sufficient to satisfy you, I think”

“NO! That will not satisfy us,” shouted Polly, dropping her cat and picking up her spear. “We had an agreement with the people of these towns. We fought hard to fulfill our commitment. We earned these horses, and will not give them up to you or to anyone else! We just killed forty brigands, you only have, what, maybe forty men yourself. You can’t do this to us!”

“Easy, Polly, take it easy,” Vince calmed her. “We aren’t wearing our armor, and they are. And we’d have to fight all forty of them, all at once. A much harder fight than last night’s. Let’s try first to negotiate with the baron.”

“No, Vince, Polly’s right,” declared Ben. “We did earn these horses, under a contract with these townspeople. The baron didn’t even arrive until the brigands was all dead. We protected the people of these towns; he didn’t. We got better fightin’ skills than most other fighters. They’re not in formation yet, ’n’ it won’t take no great time to put on our armor. ’N’ I kin use the full power of my sword because my cause is just.”

As he spoke, pulling his sword from its sheath, he ran his left hand up the blade of his sword, almost caressing it. As he finished speaking, a bright yellow flame sprang up along the blade, from hilt to point. Ben’s companions looked at it, wondering what he was doing. The baron’s men looked at it in astonishment, knowing the legend of the baron’s family. Baron Rassalar looked at it with wonder and amazement, seeing before him the legend made real. He fell to his knees before Ben.

“Forgive my hasty words, young man,” he pleaded. “That sword! How did it come into your possession? That is the sword of Sir Tanalor! It must be, there cannot be two like it! May I buy it from you? I’ll offer you anything you desire! I want it for myself. Please, I beg you. I cannot take it from you, I dare not try, you would cut me in half if I did. I will do whatever you ask. Please.”

“But this ain’t the sword of Sir Tanalor, My Lord,” countered Ben. “I found this sword in an ancient tomb datin’ back far before the time of Sir Tanalor. His sword was made with the same magic, I s’pose. Fortunately for you, I’m a wizard myself, ’n’ I’ve learned the secret of creatin’ such a wonderful weapon as this.

“I kin make a sword like this for you, if you truly want it. But in return you should let us have our legitimate prize, these horses ’n’ gear, as promised by Hiram ’n’ these two towns. We might have defeated your men in battle, but we’d likely have taken casualties ourselves. This is better ’n’ safer. Perhaps a letter from your lordship to the merchants of Worthin’, askin’ them to deal fairly with us.”

“Oh, certainly. Anything! Emory, paper and pen! Now!” yelled Rassalar to his squire. “Write this down in your best hand, ‘These are my dear friends, and I wish you to treat them as such. Give them fair prices for the goods they wish to sell, and I will return your generosity with my own.’ Now give it to me to sign and seal it. Thank you. Here, Vince, take this token of my favor, and all the things these folk here offered you. It is all yours.”

“My Lord baron, thank you for this courtesy,” replied Vince, accepting the letter with a polite bow. “Ben, are you sure you want to give him such a dangerous weapon?”

“Vince, as I said, mebbe we’da beat ’em,” Ben said, “but mebbe not. ’N’ if we did win, how many of us would be dead before victory. He angered me by tryin’ to take our fair payment for killin’ off the brigands, but he has apologized ’n’ made amends to us. I should thank him in some way.

“Baron Rassalar, My Lord, if you’ll hand me your sword I’ll enchant it for you. It don’t take long to place the spell on the sword,” he explained as he ran his hands up and down the blade, occasionally breathing on the steel and rubbing the mist into the metal. He raised the sword to the sky, then swung it three times over his head, and ended by thrusting it into the dirt of the field.

“The spell’s set now, My Lord, but it ain’t yet ready. Tomorrow you gotta use this sword to cut a small animal. A squirrel will do, ’n’ you ain’t gotta kill it, just cut it enough to draw its blood. Rub the blood on the blade ’n’ let it remain for one hour, then you gotta wash it off completely. The second day, do the same with a larger animal, such as a rabbit.

“Each day after, do the same with larger animals. A chicken, a duck, a goose, a dog, a young pig, a sheep, an ox. On the tenth day, at the end of the week, you gotta cut a man, ’n’ spread his blood on the sword. Again, you ain’t gotta kill the source of the blood, but the blood must be fresh. Then the spell will work on the mornin’ of the eleventh day.

“There is only this left to tell you. The magic only works once a day, so be certain you need its power before callin’ it up. ’N’ to make it flame, you must stroke the blade with your hand, ’n’ say the words ‘My cause is just.’ When you put it back in its sheath, the flame will go out.”

Ben handed the sword, its sheath and belt to Rassalar, who accepted them with reverence. He kissed the hilt and hugged the sword to his chest in delight. He shook Ben’s hand, and hugged him too. He smiled to everyone around, holding the sword high in the air for all to see.

“My Lord Baron,” declared Hiram, “we’re plannin’ a feast for later today to honor our new friends, and we would invite you and your men to join us. West Windleby suffered from these brigands, but East Windleby is just as grateful because they would’ve suffered as well. We cannot feast without honorin’ you as well. You came when we called, and that is important to us.”

Wagons began to arrive from both towns, bearing trestle tables and benches, barrels of beer and casks of wine. More wagons brought haunches of meat, loaves of bread, and baskets of fruit. Men laid out fires and began cooking the meats, while women put the other foods on the tables. Baron Rassalar was given the place of honor at the main table, and he asked Vince’s band to join him.

“This feast was planned to honor you for your noble labors,” he stated, “planned before I had yet arrived. And it is only just that you should be seated here with me. Ben, you must tell me how you found your sword, for I was unaware of any other flaming sword but that of Sir Tanalor.”

“It’s quite a story, My Lord,” replied Ben. “We’d broken into an ancient burial mound far to the west of here, a grave datin’ back to long before the time of Sir Tanalor. I went into the mound searchin’ for any treasure that mighta been buried there. Suddenly a barrow wight came at me to kill me, its claws graspin’ at my arms. We wrassled in the dark ’n’ I was afraid ’cause he was so strong, ’n’ ’cause I couldn’t see him, or anythin’.

“Then as I fought him, I felt a sword hilt under my hand. I prayed to the Gods for help ’n’ uttered the words ‘My cause is just.’ Suddenly, the sword flamed. Light filled the tomb ’n’ I saw the hideous monster I’d been fightin’. It was even more horrible to see it, but I felt new courage with the flamin’ sword. I slew the barrow wight ’n’ took the sword.”

“My goodness! That is truly amazing!” exclaimed Rassalar. “And you’re so young, too. A most amazing young man. Emory, bring some of my brandy for this most remarkable fellow. Drink, everyone, to the health of these brave heroes!”

***

The next morning the baron took a snared squirrel and cut it with his sword. He carefully smeared its blood on the blade under Ben’s watchful eye. When he was certain his knew how to prepare his magic sword, he bade them a very fond farewell.

Vince and his band put on their armor, gathered the bundled weapons and led the saddled horses off, taking their leave of the people of the two Windlebys and their happy baron. There was a wide bend a mile down the road, and Ben managed to hold his laughter in until they had rounded that bend.

“He believed me!” he chortled. “He really believed I could create a sword like that of Sir Tanalor! Oh, my, I didn’t even hafta try to use magic on him, either. I thought I’d hafta cajole him like I did the merchants in Grangus. But he wanted to believe so much, he convinced himself, without any help from me! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

“What did you do, Ben?” asked Jenny. “I know that’s no magic sword. You only have the sword you bought in Clun to replace the old, beat up one Petey had.”

“And we don’t rob tombs, either,” Vince reminded him. “Temples of Death hunt down grave robbers, people who show no respect to the dead.”

“Yeah, it’s just a normal sword,” admitted Ben. “’N’ I know we don’t rob tombs, but he don’t. He ’spects rogues to be disreputable, so a little robbin’ the dead sounds just normal to him. I didn’t want to lose our pay for fightin’ the brigands, so I offered him what he wanted. I had to have a story, ’n’ that’s one my grampa usta tell about some other magic sword. I improvised the bit about the magic words, ’n’ smearin’ blood on the sword. ’N’ the flame was just my normal finger flame. I kin spread it out longer, but this is the first time I needed to.”

“Well, thank you, Ben, for saving us from a nasty fight,” Horace said. “Even in armor, we’d have had a perty hard time with those guys. Ah’d love to see his face in a week when he tries to make the sword flame again!”

“No, you wouldn’t, dear,” objected Betsy. “Because to see his face you’d have to be there. And I, for one, want to be as far as possible from where he is when he learns he’s been had. We’ll have a week’s lead on him when he starts after us, so let’s not waste time on the road.”

“Ten thousand moons! Excellent bargaining, Vince,” Betsy exulted. “Two thousand more than we thought we’d get. Very good!”

“It wasn’t my bargainin’ ability,” admitted Vince. “It was the baron’s letter. He ‘politely asked’ the merchants of Worthing, and those at the fair, to give us ‘fair’ prices for this stuff. They understood that ‘fair’ meant generous. He also said he’d be generous to them if they did as he asked. They even gave us somethin’ for that useless armor. It was mostly junk before the fight, and worse after.”

“Well, however it happened, our moneybags are full again,” chuckled Horace. “We wasn’t getting poor yet, but we’ve been on the road for a long time now. And it’s gonna be a while before we get back to Lugau. The weather’s gitting cooler, and it’ll git rainy soon. We’re gonna want inns, and they don’t run cheap.”

“Yes, and it looks like rain soon up ahead,” noticed Jenny. “It’s four or five days to Rotherham, an easy climb uphill, they say. I think we’re going to want to be indoors every night.”

“Jenny, this may seem like a silly question coming from a merchant’s daughter,” asked Polly, “but how much money do we spend on the road? I know Vince said we had about eight thousand moons before we got to Ongar, and now we have ten thousand more, plus what Ben stole from the dukes. But how much of that do we spend, day to day?”

“I guess it’s not so silly a question, Polly,” Jenny said. “Betsy handles our expenses mostly. She has a good sense of the ‘right’ price for things. It helps to have one person pay for all of us, and we gave her that job. Do you want to help her?”

“Oh, no, I’m just curious about our travel expenses. My father might have been a successful merchant, but he never taught me anything about doing business. I do have some knowledge of jewelry prices, because he let me shop for my own jewelry and gave me some tips on value. But that’s all.”

“Well, Polly, the costs of travel depend on how we travel,” explained Betsy. “Most of the way here from Lugau we’ve spent camping out. That’s as cheap as it gets. The horses graze on grass, we buy some supplies from some market town or farm. Maybe hunt for food to save money. It still runs about a moon for each of us per day. More if we get oats for the horses. With oats and beer, maybe ten moons a day for all of us.

“Staying in an inn costs more; how much more depends on the quality of the inn. A decent inn will cost about two moons for a room for each couple, and a moon each for a good meal. Beer or wine will add to the total, depending on how thirsty we are. Our horses will stay in the inn’s stable for another moon each. So, seven horses (counting the pack horse) cost seven moons a day. Three rooms for us costs six moons. Two meals a day for six of us is another twelve moons. A mug of beer costs a mug, so two moons gets us twenty mugs of beer. About three mugs of beer each per day. Fairly normal unless we’re celebrating.

“That makes twenty-seven moons a day to stay in an ordinary inn. A cheap inn will cost less, usually. A very nice inn will be half again, maybe twice as expensive. I usually allow for thirty moons a day when we stay at inns. Ten days a week, four weeks a month, that’s twelve hundred moons for all of us to sleep indoors all month. So this ten thousand we just made will last us about eight months, which is really nice.

“Of course, I haven’t figured in the cost of new clothes from time to time. Or repairs to armor, because even Knut’s mail gets damaged. Or new tack for our horses, because stuff wears out. Packs, rope, candles (even with Ben’s magic finger fire). We don’t gamble much. We bet on the fights at the tournament in Ongar because Jenny can pick winners like nobody else. We’re all married, so the guys don’t throw money away on whores. Still, there are other things we spend money on, but all these things are individual expenses, not group expenses.”

***

Rotherham was built of stone or wood, with no intermediate stage of brick buildings. Stone and wood were both easy to get locally from the forested mountains all around. The stone structures were carved all over with intricate designs the rogues hadn’t seen before. The wooden buildings were painted from street to their roofs with bright colors and figures of people. The streets were steep, built on hills but paved. Large gutters lined the streets to carry off the heavy rains that fell regularly. Ben was amazed to see several very short men talking to a merchant.

“Who are those men, Vince?” he asked. “I ain’t never seen such short adults, just the size of kids. Yet they gotta be adults because they have beards ’n’ mustaches.”

“Those are Dwarves, Ben,” Vince informed him. “I’ve never been through this part of Orilon, but I know that these mountains are home to a lot of Dwarf towns. They live mostly underground and mine minerals and metals. They have some houses and farms right outside their underground towns, but they buy most of their food from humans. Easier for them, just as it’s easier for humans to buy ores from the Dwarves.”

“From grampa’s stories, I thought Dwarves had great big beards. These are no bigger than yours or Horace’s.”

“Still believing everything your grampa told you, Ben?” asked Horace with a laugh. “The old stories exaggerate a lot of things. Trolls ain’t ten feet tall either, though they’re bigger than humans. And Elves ain’t invisible in the forests, it just seems that way. They’re good at hiding when they want to.”

***

Two days later, climbing up a mountain trail that used to be a road, they spotted a broken turret sticking up from a clump of trees. The sun shone brightly on the tower, making it gleam white against the forest background. On a rainy day they might have missed seeing it.

“Think that’s the castle?” asked Jenny.

“Ned said two days south of Rotherham, so it might be,” replied Vince. “If not we can still take a break for lunch here. No one’s been this way in a long time, no side trail leadin’ to whatever is there. It looks like there’s a break in the woods just ahead; let’s see if that leads to anything.”

Fifteen minutes later they looked at the remains of the stone walls and towers of a former castle. Parts of the curtain wall still stood, lined with large cracks. Other parts were piled on the ground where they fell in some old catastrophe. The keep had only a few bits of wall standing. The interior of its shell was filled with the debris that had fallen into it over the centuries.

Time had filled in some of the gaps in the outer walls with drifted dirt, followed by wind-blown grass seeds. The improvised pasture gave easy access to the center of the old castle. The former out-buildings had all collapsed as well, but another grassy break in the walls led out to a stream behind the ruins. Huge blocks of stone lay all about the site where they fell when tall structures collapsed. It was hard to imagine the appearance of the original castle, or even what purpose some parts once had.

“A man in the bar in Rotherham said something about an earthquake recently,” recalled Betsy. “I guess it knocked down more of the castle. This doesn’t look like what Ned described to us.”

“No, Ah cain’t see any part that looks like a main hall,” agreed Horace. “That section of wall standing in the back mighta been part of a hall, but there ain’t no floor left, or side walls. We got our work cut out for us, trying to find that goblet in this here pile of stones. That mass of rock must be twenty feet deep, and it don’t look like there are many small pieces in it.”

They found the small stream and made camp by it. There was lush grass, even late in the season, for their horses. They gathered wood for a campfire and arranged their sleeping gear on the ground. They started the fire going, made sure it was properly contained, and left it to burn down to coals. When all was set, they went for a closer look at the ruins.

“This stretch of rock is all part of the outer wall,” noted Vince. “It’s lyin’ in place as it fell. The castle proper is that big jumble of stone over there. That tower seems to have fallen on top of part of the keep, and it’s all mixed together now. Here’s a staircase up that’ll get us a closer look at some of that wall there.

“Oh, my, watch that stone, it’s loose. Here’s the main hall, Horace. See this, it’s the base of a window, and that’s a seat by it. There’s two more, so this must be the hall. Orville and Ned said he found the first cup in a big room, which this would be if so much of it hadn’t collapsed. Ah, look, a little niche in the wall, just like they described. Empty.”

“The rest of this wall is gone,” commented Ben. “Would the two hidin’ spots have been next to one another, or in two different places?”

“Either way, Ben,” suggested Betsy. “It would’ve been more convenient to the count to have them next to each other. But he may have put them in different places so a thief wouldn’t find both at the same time. It doesn’t matter much, because there isn’t any more of this part of the wall left.”

“Let’s go down again and think about this,” Vince said.

“Up there is where we found that niche,” Vince indicated, looking up and pointing to the ledge of rock that remained from the former room. “I’d think that the other hidin’ place was on the same level. Maybe on the opposite side of the hall, maybe just farther down that wall. The rest of that wall is here on the ground, mixed up with lots of other rocks. The other side of the hall may be there, but there’s no stair up to that spot, and no floor to stand on, not even a ledge.”

“I kin climb pretty well,” volunteered Ben. “Shepherds gotta clamber over rocks to get at stray sheep. There’s lotsa places in these stone walls to git a finger or toe in. You kin guide me to the right level from down here, ’n’ I kin check for loose stones. Don’t tell me it’s too dangerous. I know that. But how else are we gonna inspect that wall?”

“Before you start climbing up, let me give you a little protection,” advised Betsy. “I have a long skein of yarn in my bag, and we have a lot of rope. I can shoot an arrow over the top of that wall with the yarn tied to it. Then I can tie the rope to the yarn and bring the rope down here. Horace and Vince can hold the other end of the rope while we tie this end around your waist. That’ll keep you from falling.”

Horace and Vince pulled on the slack in the rope as Ben climbed, despite Vince’s complaints. He wanted to see Ben climb, as if his watching would protect him. Betsy, Jenny, and Polly helped guide Ben to the right level, and watched him move along the wall, tapping for hollow spaces. After half an hour he yelled out for some more slack and began his descent.

“I couldn’t find any hidin’ spot up there,” he told them when he got back down. “There ain’t no plastered bits at all, or little doors, or anythin’ like they said. But that ain’t much of a wall any more, either. The hidin’ spot coulda been in part of the wall that fell down already.”

“It’s starting to git dark now,” noted Horace. “We won’t see much in the twilight, so let’s break off for today and have dinner. Tomorrow we kin look at each pile of rock down here.”

Dinner was a young goat that Betsy had bought at a farm early in the day, quickly slaughtered and hung over the back of their pack horse. As twilight grew darker there was time to cut it up, cook it, and talk and relax.

“I hope we can find this goblet,” mused Polly, watching Fearless wandering about the camp. “It looks kind of hopeless now. I guess I expected it to be right there in the open. Silly of me. If it had been, someone else would’ve found it long ago.”

“True enough, but don’t worry about it tonight,” Jenny comforted her. “We can’t do anything to find it tonight. Tomorrow will come soon enough and we’ll have sunlight to search by. I think these clouds are going to pass off by morning.”

They chatted about other matters. They ate, cleaned up the mess of cooking, and slept. Even though they were in a remote place, off what passed for a road here, they still kept a watch, an hour and a half each. Polly had the third watch and grew restless just sitting and waiting for nothing to happen. She picked Fearless up and walked over to the huge piles of broken stone that was all that remained of the castle. She felt melancholy that so large and obviously imposing a castle could now be just so much rubble.

Vince told us about all the towns destroyed in the Big War, everything gone now. Towns like Grangus probably, with houses like Barnabas’. All burned and torn down, like this castle. What a sad thing to happen. Even worse was what must have happened to the people who lived there. Killed off, or fled to somewhere else, hoping to survive. Even Barnabas wouldn’t deserve such a fate.

She wandered around the piles of stone, thinking about their quest to find the missing goblet, and how little chance there would be of finding it among all this rock. She tried to remember what the drawing Orville had shown them looked like. A large goblet, round bowl, with a metal band around the lip, and several emeralds placed in settings around the bowl, halfway down. A large base, so it wouldn’t tip over on the dining table. Gold, Orville said. Nice patterns in the decoration.

Why am I looking over there? This is the pile under the wall that we thought held the secret hiding place. That other spot is too far away. Vince thinks I can find anything just like that. I don’t always find things, though. Maybe I should’ve told him I have limits. But he’s so proud of what dear Ben can do, and I’d like to get that kind of attention. Not that I’m jealous of Ben! He deserves everyone’s love for what he did for Jenny. And they do like my spear fighting, and praise me for it. I should be happy for that, I guess. Ben doesn’t always like being the center of attention. Maybe he’s right.

“Polly, where are you?” called out Horace. “Oh, there you are. Your watch is over. Get some sleep.”

***

After breakfast on leftover goat, they went back to the ruins. Vince led them to the base of the wall with the staircase so they could examine the blocks of stone lying at its base. There was no smooth surface that suggested it was the outer face of a wall. Everything was broken and jagged. Some of the irregular bits seemed to match up with fragments still in place up above. But the smooth sides must have been on the bottom, hidden from view.

After looking fruitlessly for half an hour, Vince asked Polly “Can you sense anything here? Is this pile of rock too deep for your sense to penetrate?”

“I don’t think so, Vince, but I need to tell you something. I can’t always find things. I’ve succeeded for you, for us, a few times, but I’ve failed sometimes in the past. I wanted you to like me the way you like Ben, and so I didn’t want to admit I wasn’t perfect at this. I had a really nice ring my mother gave me, just before she left. It disappeared shortly after that and I could never find it. My maid said she thought Barnabas stole it to spite my mother, but I don’t think he could be so cruel as that.

“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that there are limits to what I can do. I shouldn’t have made you think I could do this all the time. I’m sorry. I came out here last night when I was on watch, and tried to sense the goblet. I couldn’t. I walked all around this pile of stone, and couldn’t feel anything. In fact, I kept thinking it was over there, by that other pile. I didn’t go there, because that’s obviously not part of the main hall, or even the keep.”

“Polly, I suggested lookin’ here first because this pile seems to be debris from the great hall,” Vince told her. “None of us knows for sure where that goblet was kept, but that seemed to be the best place to look. But we are expecting you to find it. Not because you said you can find anything, but because you have found other things. You have shown us you can do this, it’s not just you sayin’ so. If you sense the goblet somewhere else, then we are wrong and you are likely right. If your ability is magic like Ben’s finger fire, then it should work all the time.”

“But I sense it so far from this spot. And it’s not clear to me. That chest in Ongar that Ballatin was trying to hide was very sharp in my mind. So was Barnabas’ treasure. This is muddled. I sense something like the picture Orville showed us, but not quite the same. Like seeing someone and only recognizing his nose, but not the rest of his face.”

“Let’s go over there, then, and check it out,” suggested Betsy. “If you don’t think this is the right spot, we shouldn’t waste any more time with it. Maybe you’ll get a better feel over there.”

“I do sense it better here,” admitted Polly, after they moved, “but still not quite right. Under this big block of stone.”

“This here looks like part of the outer wall of the castle,” noted Horace. “Yeah, this broken section here matches up with that part up there. It’s got fewer weeds growing on it up there, like this piece broke off more recently. Maybe during that recent earthquake. So what’s the goblet doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Polly shrugged. “But the more I try to sense it, the more this is the place. Can we move the stones away and check underneath?”

“Polly, my love, I will gladly move mountains for you,” declared Ben, “but not real ones. This is a huge block, dozens of large stones still mortared together. Each stone would be hard to move, and bein’ still bound together makes it almost impossible to move the whole thing.”

“We need help,” decided Jenny. “And we can get it from the people who live around here. This late in the year, harvest is over and they will have time to help us. They will have tools to help break this big block into smaller sections. They will have oxen to haul the stones out of the way. And we have money to persuade them to help us.”

“Good idea,” agreed Vince. “There was a village five miles down the road. We should go back to it and see if we can get that sort of help. Take our money, just in case, but leave the rest of our gear.”

They saddled up and followed their earlier tracks back to the main trail. As they came up to it, they saw a gray haired man walking with a staff, but not leaning on it.

“Here comes someone,” noticed Betsy. “Hope he doesn’t mind our being here. I can’t think anyone still owns this ruin.”

“Good morning, youngsters,” greeted the man. “My name is Soren. I live at a farm farther up the hill. Just on my way to town to get a new axe. Broke my old one choppin’ down a tree. Missed the trunk and hit a rock, real hard. I’d done that one time too often, I reckon, because it shattered the blade.

“Anyway, what’re you folks doin’? Hardly ever see anyone with any interest in these old ruins. Unless you’re some of those treasure hunters we’ve had the last few years, thinkin’ there’s a fortune buried here.”

“Good morning to you, Soren. I”m Vince, and these are Jenny, my wife, Horace and his wife Betsy, and Ben and his wife Polly. Yes, we’re treasure hunters. We hope to find an old goblet hidden here since the very old days. One was found here maybe ten years ago, and we think there might be another to find.”

“Ah, you young people. Lots of energy to waste chasin’ after daydreams. I envy you your enthusiasm and wish you well in your search. But I don’t think you’ll find anythin’. Too many others been here over the last, I guess it must be ten years at that. So many eyes searching’, arms diggin’, pokin’ around. If they ain’t found it, what makes you think you kin?”

“Well, we got a feeling that it might be under a huge block by the outer wall,” remarked Horace. “It’s kind of complicated how we come to this here feeling, but that’s our best guess right now. Do you s’pose we could hire some men from around here to help us break up that block? And hire some oxen to move the stones?”

“Hire men for cash money? Hell, yes. If I wasn’t quite so old, I’d take your money to smash rocks. Have to be honest with you, I’m a little past that sort of heavy labor. But there’s plenty of men would be glad to make some extra money for a little hard work. Come along with me to the village and you kin get all you need. Harvest is over and most of us farmers kin use a little extra cash all the time. I cain’t smash your rocks, but I got a yoke of oxen you kin use for a fair price.”

***

Everyone in the area knew about the castle, though few had ever visited it. It was, after all, a ruin, and was of no economic use to farmers and herders. Vince and his friends had left a broad enough path through the grass into the woods that the farmers could find their camp the next day. An afternoon of discussion, beer, and bargaining had raised a party of ten men with sledges and heavy chisels, and four others, including Soren, who each had a team of oxen.

“Friends, thank you for coming,” Vince greeted them.

“Thank you for the five moons a day you’re payin’ us,” replied Dale.

“You’ll be earning it,” Vince told him. “This is the block I want you to break up. It looks like it was part of the curtain wall of the castle. It was ten feet thick as a wall, and maybe twenty feet tall. It broke apart when it fell, but it’s still ten feet thick. We’re lookin’ for something buried under this pile of rock, and we think it’s at this end here. What would’ve been the top of the wall. So let’s start breaking up this end first.”

The men looked at the block of stone from all sides. They discussed among themselves which parts they should try to break loose first, and which way any loosened stone might fall. Two men climbed on top of the chunk and inspected the mortar still binding the stones together. The outer parts on both sides were large stones with smaller ones filling the interior of the wall. All the stones were mortared together to make a stronger wall.

“All right, everybody get a good look at it?” asked Dale. “I reckon we should start at the top, here at this upper edge. First cut through the mortar at the bottom, then work on the sides to get it loose. Pay attention as we work. Startin’ at the top should keep all the loose stones supported by those below them. But be careful that a loose piece don’t get away and dump out. Be sure your leg ain’t under it if it does.”

The men worked in pairs, one holding an oversized chisel, one swinging a large mallet. They worked at the bottom edge of two large stones to start with, until they saw cracks going into the upper mortar. Then they shifted their efforts to the sides and tops of those stones. An hour’s work saw two big stones loosened and levered to fall harmlessly to the ground. Two men with teams of oxen dragged the stones to the other side of the grassy area.

“We got these giant chisels from the dwarves,” mentioned Dale, as he and Vince watched the work progress. “They use ’em all the time in their mines, of course. They got no interest in quarryin’ stone just to have stone, but we do. So we been copyin’ their techniques for a long time. These stones was probably first quarried with chisels just like these, way back when.

“The work’s going faster than I thought it would. Of course, that mortar is hundreds of years old. They must have had some marvelous formula for it in those days for it to last so well. But it’s crumblin’ up nicely now. We should have ’bout half the length of this section cleared off today, down about six feet. The last four feet’ll be easier tomorrow. We won’t have to be careful about the bottom row of stones, since they cain’t fall anywhere.”

As the afternoon sun got lower in the sky, the men left for home. Polly walked over the space where the rocks had been removed, looking at the remaining stones. She stopped at one side, next to the part of the fallen wall the men had not worked on yet, looking at it intently. She climbed on top of it and sat for a while, thinking. She climbed down again and walked some more over the exposed stones. Ben came up to watch her.

“Ben, it’s here, and it’s not here,” she told him. “I can sense it more strongly now, right here, under this part. They should expose it in the morning, from what Dale said. But it still doesn’t feel right to me. It feels like something similar to the cup, but not quite the same. Could there have been another fancy goblet, but different?”

“I don’t know, Polly. Ned didn’t even know there was two. Orville knowd about the second. He told us what he knowd ’cause he wanted us to find it for him. If he knowd about another valuable goblet, I reckon he woulda told us ’bout it, too. Let’s not worry ’bout it tonight. Soren sold Betsy a nice suckling pig ’n’ she’s been roastin’ it since mornin’. Time to eat it now.”

***

“I was thinkin’ about this last night after I went home,” declared Dale. “Do we want to continue where we left off and get down to the ground, or should we bring the other side of this chunk down to the same level? It’s goin’ to be hard to work on the lower stones where they butt up against the other part.”

“No, keep on here where you worked yesterday,” advised Polly. “It’s here, under this part. Move these two bottom stones, and the third can be left in place, I think.”

“You know, Vince, I don’t mind doin’ some hard work for pay, and you’re payin’ us well,” mused Dale. “I don’t even care that you haven’t said what you’re lookin’ for. Somethin’ valuable, obviously. But how can this young girl, no offense meant, ma’am, be so certain where somethin’ is when no one’s seen the underside of these rocks in years, if not centuries.”

“Let’s just say she has a knack for finding things,” stated Vince. “If she thinks it’s here, then here is where we want to look first. If she’s wrong, we’ll look someplace else. And we’ll still pay you the same.”

“All right, fine. I knew a guy who swore he could always find water. He fell into a stream one dark night and drowned. I guess he did find water, but spottin’ it earlier would have been better for him.”

Two more hours of work and the last stones were broken loose. The bottom layer, since it couldn’t fall away, had to be pulled apart by the oxen. As the last stone was moved away, a skeletal hand and arm came into view.

They were stretched out from a worn, half-decayed tunic sleeve. Under the bones of the hand was a shiny metal blob.

“That’s it,” whispered Polly quietly. “I did find it! Oh! Oh, my! Ben, I was right after all!” she shouted.

“That’s your treasure?” asked Dale. “A crushed bit of shiny metal? That’s what all the fuss was ’bout?”

“Yes, that’s it,” admitted Vince, looking at the crushed metal. “We had hoped to find it in better shape, actually. But that’s what we came here to find.”

“What happened?” asked Horace. “I mean, who’s he, and how did he and the goblet get under all this here rock?”

“He’s probably one of Orville’s other searchers,” Jenny guessed. “He must have found the goblet and been leaving the castle when that last earthquake shook the wall down on him. The wall killed him and flattened the goblet. No one would ever have found it again, except Polly. Thank you for that, Polly. It’s not your fault the goblet is ruined.”

“Well, we won’t go back empty-handed,” Betsy comforted them. “It’s solid gold, or so Orville said. And the emeralds will be worth something. Maybe the raw value plus the money we made off the brigands will be enough to get Ben’s grimoire.”

“Orville won’t be happy, but there’s nothing he nor we can do about it,” sighed Vince. “He wanted to make a good deal more that ten thousand from that goblet. I just hope he won’t jack up the price of the grimoire to make up the difference.”

Ben knelt on the ground and carefully removed the crushed metal from the bones. He counted the emeralds still attached to the goblet, and searched in the dirt for the rest of them. He looked closely to see if there was anything else from the goblet in the dirt, then he stood and put the pieces in a small bag.

“So what was it?” asked Soren.

“An ancient count lived here and had two fancy goblets for himself and his countess,” Vince related the tale. “The castle was captured, looted, and destroyed. And no one found the goblets. Ten years ago a fellow wanderin’ through here found one of ’em by accident. He sold it to someone who knew there should be two goblets. He offered us a lot if we could find the second one. He must have offered a lot to this poor guy under the rocks, too.”

“So, what should we do with him?” asked Dale. “We could clear more of these stones to uncover his whole skeleton.”

“No,” objected Soren. “Let him stay here. We can move some of those stones back over him and bury him where he died. I kin come back and chisel some inscription on the stone for a memorial for him. Don’t s’pose you know who he was, Vince?”

“Just some adventurer whose lucky day turned unlucky in a hurry.”

The bottom layer of stones was dragged back into place over the bones and Vince said a prayer for the dead.

“I’ve heard the priests of Death sayin’ that at funerals,” commented Dale. “But not so often I could do it from memory like that.”

“I used to visit Death’s Temples a lot, a long time ago,” mentioned Vince. “I learned a lot of useful things there. This included. It may not help this unfortunate dead man, but it doesn’t hurt him either. We don’t know him and don’t feel sad over his death. But it’s good to show respect for the dead. Sooner or later, we all end up like him.”

“We promised you five moons a day,” interrupted Betsy. “Two days gets you ten moons each. I’ll double it, because I know you were hoping for a longer job. Thanks for your help.”

The men shook hands with everyone, took their money, and dispersed to their homes. Ben sat down on the newly created grave and took the goblet out of his bag. He turned it this way and that, studying the damage to it. He looked depressed.

“Ben, I hope you’re not too disappointed,” Jenny said. “That is not going to be worth what Orville wants. Smashed flat like that, it’s only worth the value of the gold and the emeralds. That’s something, but he can’t make a lot of profit off of it. I’m sorry we couldn’t do better for you.”

“I know. I don’t blame you, any of you, that it ain’t perfect. How could I? We was lucky to find it at all. ’N’ as you say, the gold and the emeralds are worth somethin’.”

Ben was still glum eight days later as they were passing East Windleby when night, and a heavy rain, fell. They stopped at the inn and were well received by a smiling innkeeper.

“The baron warn’t happy about the trick you played on him,” warned the innkeeper. “But he shouldn’ta tried to take your proper pay. We all agreed you should have those horses if you got rid of the brigands, and you did. Still, you shouldn’t stay too long in the barony.”

The next morning proved him right. Baron Rassalar had spent the night in West Windleby and was up early to return to his own castle. One of his escort’s horses lost a shoe on the road to East Windleby and he stopped to have the horse re-shod. He went into the inn for a morning beer, and saw Ben and the others halfway through breakfast.

“You! You deceitful thief! Dare you return here again? I’ve got you now! Emory, get my men in here, now! You won’t get away from me this time!”

“My Lord Baron Rassalar,” Vince began, “please do not …..”

“Silence! Do not try to wheedle me into some mistaken clemency. I’ve been cheated and will have my revenge on this deceiver.”

“Please, Baron Rassalar, I kin make it up to you with a real magic sword,” offered Ben hurriedly. “Honestly, this time. I was upset before that you was gonna take our pay for killin’ the brigands. That’s why I fooled you. I said that you hadn’t protected these people, while we had. But I realize that you did come when your subjects called on you. Many barons don’t do that, or so quickly. You should’ve had some reward for comin’ to protect your people.

“I told you I was a wizard. It wasn’t just a lie to trick you. I kin do some magic. I cain’t really make a flamin’ sword – that was a trick. But I kin give you somethin’ almost as good, a sword that never goes dull. A sword that cuts through leather ’n’ flesh as if they was butter. It won’t cut through metal, but it’s wonderful on any other kind of armor.

“Let me have your sword ’n’ your dagger for an hour, ’n’ I kin sharpen ’em with magic. You kin test ’em here before any of us leaves, so you’ll know they’re really enchanted. What kin be the harm in this? If I’m lyin’ again, you kin punish me later rather than sooner.”

“Another slick lie to mislead me, to distract me from my proper retribution. Do you expect me to believe another of your stories?”

“No, this is real! Look, I’ll show you. Take my dagger, ’n’ yours. Here’s my bare arm. Lightly draw your dagger across my arm. See, it leaves a little scratch, but it don’t cut. Now do the same with my dagger. See it cuts right away. Take my dagger ’n’ drag the edge with force across my helmet. It won’t cut it, but the blade should get dulled, shouldn’t it? Now draw it across my arm again. See, it still cuts easily. I kin make your blades just as sharp, permanently sharp, as this. I really kin.”

Ben put his hand over the two cuts on his arm while he waited for the baron’s reply. The baron looked at the two daggers. Mine is nicer looking, with a fancier hilt. His is very ordinary, with nothing to make it appear special. Yet, I drew the two daggers across his arm with the same force; I know that. No one is playing a trick on me here. My hand made both light cuts, and only one light cut had drawn blood. Or had it? His arm isn’t cut! How is he fooling me now?

“Your arm! I saw it cut! Where’s the wound? What trickery is this now?”

“My Lord Baron Rassalar, I healed it,” explained Ben. “Cut me again, ’n’ watch.”

Rassalar sliced Ben’s arm again, deeper this time because he was angry. The blood flowed and began to pool on the table. Ben calmly put his hand over the wound for a few moments and removed it to show his unscathed arm. The blood was still on the table. Rassalar goggled in disbelief.

“Are you then truly a wizard? I didn’t believe any existed anywhere in these later days. They died out ages ago, surely. But only a wizard could heal a wound like that so easily. You can’t have fooled me about being wounded, because here’s the blood. I’m astounded!”

“Then let me make you a sharp blade, a pair of sharp blades, to make up for deceivin’ you two weeks ago. I did enjoy my prank on you, but I’m willin’ to atone for it now, if you’ll let me.”

“Yes, please. I was very angry at you for that prank. I’m still upset, I must confess. But if you can do this, I will forgive you entirely. You have my word on that.”

Ben took Rassalar’s sword and began his enchantment, running his hand up and down the blade. Rassalar watched as dull places seemed to become less dull, then sharp, and still Ben worked on the blade. He set it down and took the dagger. Sooner, because the dagger was smaller, he put that down as well.

“Now, My Lord Baron Rassalar, you need to test these blades,” declared Ben. “Innkeeper, you was complainin’ this mornin’ ’bout havin’ too large a beef roast. You wanted it cut in half. My Lord, would you do him the favor of cuttin’ it with your newly sharpened sword? Just a light cut, you won’t need to use all your strength.”

“That’s a large roast, indeed, and I’d prefer to hit it hard to slice it in two. But I will trust you once more, though I still have doubts about you. A light blow will only cut half way, no matter how sharp my sword is. Oh, my goodness, all the way through, just like that. With so light a blow. Will it work so well in combat?”

“Very much like that. This roast ain’t got no hide to protect it, ’n’ your foes in battle will have armor. Metal armor will still withstand your blows, though you may cut it a little bit. But even boiled leather armor won’t offer no protection at all. You kin cut through leather ’n’ flesh ’n’ bone just as easily as you just cut this roast. You’ll need more force than you used on the roast, but it’s all the same.”

“This is not the legendary flaming sword I wanted so badly, but it is a very remarkable sword. It will serve me almost as well in battle, since many warriors have light armor. I’m very happy and pleased with you now, Ben. I feel a little confused, having my feelings about you change so rapidly. It’s so bizarre to find a real wizard in a world where wizards no longer exist. My mind reels thinking about this. Would you come stay at my castle as my court wizard? I will reward you very well.”

“Thank you, My Lord, but I must decline. A couple of months ago, four dukes wanted me to be their court wizard, intendin’ to use me to acquire greater power. They woulda paid better than you kin, I s’pose. But bein’ kept in court in luxury is like bein’ kept in prison in rags. It’s more comfortable to live in luxury, but it ain’t the rags that make a prison awful. It’s the lack of freedom. They wouldn’ta let me go wanderin’, I knew that. I fear that you wouldn’t want me to wander, either. I thank you for the kind offer, however.”

“Keep you locked up! No, I wouldn’t think… Yes, you’re right. On second thought, sooner or later I would be afraid to lose you. May I invite you and your friends to visit me for a short time? A week at most? I find you fascinating and want to, well, show you off to my wife and family. They will not believe what I tell them about you if they don’t see the truth. And you may leave whenever you wish. Please.”

“You said ‘Please’ again. You’ve said it to me more than once. The four dukes never used that word. Since you got better manners than they had, I’ll agree to visit your castle. Is that all right with you, Vince? I’d like to.”

“Ben, you’ve been handlin’ this like you’ve been doin’ it all your life,” commented Vince. “I’ve never turned someone’s wrath so neatly and easily as you just did. It never hurts to have the good will of a nobleman. You’ve already angered four dukes; having a baron on your side doesn’t even things out, but it’s still good. Yes, My Lord Baron Rassalar, we will be honored to visit your castle and family.”

***

That evening Ben entertained the baron and his family with stories of his experiences. He left out healing Jenny, because that was too hard to believe. He demonstrated his flaming finger, and used the flame to make a flaming dagger for the baroness. He showed how it was a real flame, but not the dangerous weapon of legend. The others gave restrained versions of their lives to explain how they came to be together.

Baron Rassalar told stories of his exploits in battles, and of his and his wife’s famous ancestors. He had a son and daughter who were impressed by their unusual guests. Rassalar had sometimes invited a village leader to dinner to honor him, and once a heroic man at arms. But rogues! That was different.

“I hope you will find this accommodation acceptable,” offered Rassalar. “This cottage was built for my grandmother when grandfather died and my father became baron. When he died and I became baron, my mother moved into it. She died several years ago, so this little house is used for guests. My servants have freshened up the bedding, and laid a nice fire in the hearth. Do you need anything more?”

“No, My Lord, this is very nice,” Vince bowed. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“You are most welcome. Good night.”

“All right, Ben, what is this about?” asked Polly, after Rassalar had left. “You were so down before we got to East Windleby. Even this morning. And now you’re practically dancing with excitement. Why? Because the baron says he likes you now?”

“No, because I thought of a way to fix the goblet. This mornin’ when I was enchantin’ the baron’s sword, I noticed a small nick in the blade. As I ran my hand up ’n’ down the blade to sharpen it, I noticed that the nick was smoothin’ out. It was hardly noticeable when I was through.

“I’ve been thinkin’ about that ever since. If usin’ my hands to sharpen the blade could make it sharp, ’n’ smooth out nicks, mebbe I could use my hands to reshape the goblet. When I was watchin’ sheep, I usta take some wet clay from the riverbank ’n’ shape it into little cups, or figures of people. It warn’t really good lookin’. But that memory come back to me, about shapin’ somethin’ with my hands.

“It’ll take a long time, probably, to reshape this goblet, but I thought a few days stayin’ here could git me started on it. It would be easier to try different ideas if I was sittin’ around here, instead of bein’ on the road.”

“You want to reshape the goblet?” asked Vince. “Unflatten it? Ben, you can’t do… Oh, what am I saying? There’s nothing you can’t do, is there?”

“I still cain’t fly. I don’t know if I kin do this, but it cain’t hurt to try. Orville wants an undamaged goblet, which we ain’t got. Is he gonna care if he gits a repaired goblet, ’specially if we don’t tell him it’s been repaired? ’N’ if I cain’t, well, I just wasted some time. ’N’ we’ll have a nice visit here with some nice people.”

Ben spent his time every day handling the goblet. Rassalar watched him and they talked about old legends, the baron’s modern relations with his neighbors, and the history of Orilon. Ben was eager to learn about the past, the real past, as he called it. In return Ben explained as well as he could how he did his magic. How it was mostly trial and error, and sometimes didn’t work at all. And Rassalar was fascinated at seeing Ben trying to reshape a solid piece of metal.

The round bowl of the goblet had been flattened so that the right side was smack up against the left side. Instead of a nice hollow, there was only a thin line. Ben pressed the metal, squeezed it, tried to pry it open. He made small wooden tools to try to force the metal edges of the goblet apart. He held it and looked at it thoughtfully for minutes at a time before trying something else that didn’t work. Prodding, pushing, pulling, nothing worked. But Ben never stopped trying, and he started to smile as he worked.

On the third day, a small space appeared between the two sides of the bowl. It was very small, and it was only at one end of the flat goblet. But it was a gap. Ben murmured “Yes!” and beamed.

“What has happened?” asked Rassalar. “I thought you had done it finally, but I can see it’s still flat.”

“Yes,” admitted Ben, “but not quite so flat as it was. I think I’ve begun to larn how to do this. One more day, ’n’ I think I’ll want to leave, My Lord. I appreciate your generosity ’n’ hospitality, but I shouldn’t impose on it too much. I wanted a place where I could experiment with reshapin’ metal, ’n’ you offered me that. But I must be on my way north again. I want to practice this technique tomorrow to be sure it works properly. Then the day after, we must take our leave.”

“I will be sorry to see you and your friends leave,” confessed Rassalar. “I agreed I wouldn’t hold you here when we first talked about this visit. If you should ever be near Worthing, or anywhere in this part of the Rosria-Bosno borderlands, I would hope you will return for another visit. Tomorrow night, then, we must have a fitting feast for your departure. I must go speak to my cooks.”

***

Twenty days later, two solid weeks of rain, muddy roads, and slow travel, Vince’s band reached Lugau. The Dancing Lion Inn, with a lion rampant on its sign, had rooms to spare again. The weather had gotten cold as well as wet, and merchants were staying at home until spring. Their rooms were all on the third floor, which they had all to themselves.

“I got to spend all my time workin’ on this damned goblet,” complained Ben. “My technique is workin’, but so slowly. I modified it to make it more effective, but shapin’ metal ain’t like shapin’ clay. I got a lot done on the road, but it was awkward to work on horseback. This will be better, but I think it’ll still take another month to get it finished. You ain’t gotta sit around ’n’ watch, you know. Go do somethin’ more interestin’.”

“That’s what we’re planning to do, Ben,” admitted Jenny. “When we were up here earlier, Amos asked my help in training his militia. I suppose he has some men to train by now, and Vince and I are going to help him out.”

“Betsy and Ah are gonna be looking over the town for a few days,” mentioned Horace. “The buildings up here are different from those farther south. Ah kind of like looking at ’em, and want to see more of ’em. It’s nice to see the different styles of houses and other buildings in the towns we visit. And Ah want to check out the taverns, too. Are you going to be all right here, with no one to protect you?”

“Ahem, what do I look like?” asked Polly. “Some poor little rich girl who can’t do anything? I’ll keep him company, bring him food, and stay out of his way all at the same time. And protect him.”

***

“Your Grace, I have been putting this conversation off for some time,” confessed Count Frosmelino. “But I must admit to you that I have failed to find your stolen coronet, or even the thief. I have had no word from Harold, my captain, in over three months. He is a loyal, reliable man, who loves you as much as he loves me. He understands the sort of reward he would get for returning with the thief and the coronet.

“I can only assume that some disaster has befallen him. He would have sent a message if he needed more men, or if the trail was leading farther away. He had more than enough warriors with him to handle six rogues, assuming that all six of them were fighters. I can’t imagine what has happened to him, or where.”

“I’m disappointed, Frosmelino,” replied Mittanolo, “but I forgive you. I forgive Harold as well, for I am well aware of his devotion to the two of us. Do not worry about it any more. My plans to invade Ghanal are nearly ready to execute. Once I have conquered that Principality and made myself king, I will need a new crown, not a mere coronet.

“I promised you a duchy for recovering the coronet and the thief. You will still have it if your troops fight as well as I hope in the invasion. In a few months, after we have won, send out more men to find the thief. He will have sold the coronet by now, anyway. But I would still like to torture and hang him. And if Harold should return with him sooner, so much the better.”

***

Ben had left off widening the mouth of the goblet to mend its broad base. The disk the goblet rested on was itself undamaged, but it had been bent back on the column holding the bowl. Fortunately, it had not broken off or even cracked, but he had to use considerable care to bend it back into it’s proper place. The column was another problem, since it was hollow and had been bent inward. There was barely enough space on its inside for Ben to push his little finger up and press against the metal. Slowly, bit by bit, it pushed out into shape. A full ten day week was spent on the base, and Ben was exhausted.

When the lower part was finished, Ben went back to the bowl. He had already opened it up an inch all the way across. Now he continued working to widen the opening. The repaired base helped hold the goblet up straight, which made it easier to work on. Touching the bowl, thinking about changing the shape of the metal, thinking into the metal, willing it to reshape. Fearless would jump onto the table and paw at the distorted goblet, or sniff at the gold.

Another ten days and the goblet looked like a goblet, but an ugly one. A two inch opening was better, but the opening had been probably been four inches wide. It was still very misshapen, and the loose emeralds were still waiting to be restored to their proper places.

“Hello, Ben, we’re back,” announced Jenny as she and Vince returned from Ochtrup. “Oh, my, that looks so much better! Look, Vince, it’s not flat anymore! It’s standing up properly. Well done, Ben!”

“Thank you, I appreciate your praise. But there’s still so much more to do. The base was easy, but it took a full week to fix. I’m gittin’ a little better idea of how to work the metal with my mind, but it’s still very slow work. Now that it’s standin’ on its own, I kin use both hands to try to move the metal while I think it into place.

“Horace ’n’ Betsy, ’n’ especially Polly, have been takin’ very good care of me. They insist I come down to the pub for dinner. They force me to drink good beer. They refuse to let me work at night. I still ain’t very good company, but they don’t complain. I thank ’em every day for that.”

“Well, they get a break now,” declared Jenny. “Amos was as good as his word and gave us half of the money from selling Harold’s horses and gear. He had to feed the horses for two weeks so their ribs wouldn’t show, but he did well on the price. He got eight thousand moons for everything, and gave us half. Vince tried turning him down, but he insisted. He said it was our reward for helping him get the job as militia captain.

“Vince and I did a reasonable job with Amos’ militia. His original crew learned really fast. Makes sense, we beat them badly a couple of times and they wanted to know how to do it to someone else. The militiamen know the basics of sword and shield. They can fight in a line, and on their own. Amos wants to give them some more advanced training, so we’re changing our roles. Vince and I will take care of you, while the others go to Ochtrup.

“Amos wants them to see spears and axes in action. He wants to teach them how to defend against them, and maybe find a few men who’ll try to use them. Betsy’s going to go along to teach defense. She knows that, not as well as me, but well enough for a militia. They’ll be there a week, maybe. When they come back, we’ll all sit around and watch you perform miracles.”

“It ain’t a miracle, it’s damned hard work. I’m doin’ more with my brain, thinkin’ the metal into the proper shape, than I am with my hands bendin’ it. I guess it is a miracle, seein’ it now ’n’ thinkin’ what it started out like. I just hope the grimoire helps me larn magic. Teachin’ myself is too hard.”

***

Two days later Jenny was repairing some mail. Even Knut’s wonderful riveted mail could get damaged. In Clun, Jenny had learned from Knut how to make repairs to his mail. Hers were the only fingers dainty enough to insert the tiny rivets into the almost invisible holes in the rings. It was slow work, but their armor hadn’t taken very much damage. And it gave her something to do while Ben was working on the goblet.

Vince had a pair of iron disks on the table in front of him, about eight inches across and perhaps ten gauge thick. They were dished to make small shallow domes. The smith he had gone to had been puzzled by their small size.

“They look like little baby shields,” he asked. “What good can they do? They’re too small to protect you properly.”

“They’re meant to protect someone’s hands, someone who is using a two-handed weapon and can’t use a regular shield,” explained Vince. “The metal is thick enough to stand up to a strong blow, and the dishing will protect the side of the hand. The holes I asked for will let me bolt a handle onto the inside.”

Now he was cutting a thick leather insert for each disk to add padding to the inside. He had already carved two wooden handles for them. He was making the bucklers as a gift for Polly, to protect her hands as she used her spear. Two more metal disks were waiting to be turned into bucklers for Horace as well.

The room was quiet as the three of them worked on their projects, until Ben gave out a loud shout, “Wow! Yes! I’ve got it!”

Vince, startled, dropped the leather disk he was working on. “You’ve got what? It can’t be done already, can it?”

Jenny was also surprised by Ben’s outburst, but she had her finger on the place she was repairing, and stuck a scrap of cloth into the hole to mark it. Looking at Ben, she noticed, “It still looks like it did this morning, Ben. What happened?”

“I made the metal move with just my mind!” exclaimed Ben triumphantly. “I been tryin’ to soften the metal with my mind so’s my hands kin mold it. But I just shaped the bowl a little with just my mind! I’ve been thinkin’ about this as if I was moldin’ clay, but the metal couldn’t be pliable enough. But just now it turned to soft butter in my hands, ’n’ then my mind took over ’n’ the metal moved without my touchin’ it!”

“That’s wonderful, Ben!” cried Jenny. “Will you be done with it soon, then?”

“Sooner, but not soon. I kin get the bowl shaped properly more easily, but I reckon I’ll still hafta use my hands to get the curve right, ’n’ make it smooth. But it’ll help set the emeralds in their proper places, I think.”

By the end of the week the goblet was finally restored. Polly, Betsy, and Horace returned from Ochtrup to see it standing on a table, whole, gleaming, marvelous. They stared at it in amazement, wonder, and admiration of Ben’s new skills.

Polly hugged and kissed Ben passionately. Betsy smiled broadly. Horace asked, “What do we do now?”

“We go out ’n’ celebrate tonight,” declared Ben. “Then tomorrow we see Orville ’n’ get my grimoire.”

***

“Greetings, Vince,” welcomed Orville as they entered his shop. “I thought you had given up your quest, you’ve been gone so long. Did you find the goblet? Or are you here to make some other deal for that grimoire?”

“It’s been more than two months,” Vince said, “and you still remember why we came in the first time, and what we went lookin’ for. That’s a good memory, Orville.”

“I need a good memory to keep track of the deals and offers I make. And to remember who’s not worth trusting. And who I’ve given a bad deal to. Not that you have to worry about that. I would like to get rid of that grimoire at long last. And if you’ve got the goblet, the grimoire is all yours. Do you have it?”

Ben set a cloth bag on Orville’s counter and stepped back. Orville looked at him, and the bag, and at Ben again. Then he opened the bag and pulled the cloth away from the contents. The goblet was there, shining in the morning light coming through the open door. The emeralds gleamed brightly, seemingly lit from within. Orville gaped in awe, and slowly sank into his chair behind the counter.

“You found it! How? No, I know how rogues work. I used to hunt treasure myself long ago, and know how much is pure, stupid luck. All that matters is that you did find it. So beautiful. So incredibly beautiful. I have no use for such a work of art except to sell it, but I wish I could keep it for myself, just to look at it every day. Not even a mark on it! The other had some scratches I had to polish out. Perfect, absolutely perfect.

“I promised you the grimoire for this goblet, and I am, mostly, a man of my word. Here, Ben, is the grimoire.” He went behind some shelves and returned in a few minutes with a very large case made of some strange leather.

“Keep the grimoire in this case, Ben. It is made from dragon skin. That’s one reason I had to charge so much. Dragon skin is rarer than grimoires. It will protect the book from water, mold, mildew, any sort of thing that would rot a book. I hope you can read it, because it doesn’t come with a translation. The old time wizards were jealous of their knowledge, and didn’t want anyone else learning what they did and how to do it. All their grimoires are written in some language that only they knew. That’s why none of the Temples of Knowledge will take this one off my hands. Unreadable books aren’t very interesting. Good luck with it.”

Back at the Dancing Lion Inn, the others watched Ben open the dragon skin case and remove the book inside. It was fifteen inches wide, two feet tall, and three inches thick. It was bound in the same strange leather as the case, dragon skin. Ben set it down carefully on the table and opened the cover. The first page had a lengthy inscription written in large characters of an unknown language. The inner pages were covered in the same characters, written smaller. An occasional picture or diagram gave slight clues about the content, but there were few of them. Ben closed the book and sighed.

Fearless sniffed the strange leather, sniffed some more, then curled up on top of the book and napped.

“Are you disappointed, Ben?” asked Polly, putting into words what they all wanted to ask.

“Yes, a little. No. No, not really. I knowd it was written in a strange language. I had a foolish hope that mebbe I could read what no one else could. I guess I thought I could look at the writin’ ’n’ it would somehow make sense to me. If only wizards could read it, ’n’ I’m a wizard, then I should be able to read it. Vanity.

“I thought, too, that mebbe Humoparmia might give me the ability to read it. She wants me to become a wizard ’n’ be Her priest, but She won’t just give me the knowledge. I gotta earn it, larn it all on my own. I pray to Her even though I don’t know how She wants to be worshiped. This may be the last barrier to Her. If I kin read this grimoire, I kin find out how to worship Her properly.

“She come to me in a dream the other night, after I had finished the goblet. She said She was pleased with how well I was developin’ my skills, even without proper instruction. She told me to keep doin’ so. But She won’t give me anythin’, I gotta earn everythin’. She seems to think I’ll succeed, ’n’ that’s encouragin’.